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The human costs of crime and migration

Capturing ‘serious career criminals’ is pivotal within intellectual property crime enforcement (SOCA, 2010a: 1; SOCA, 2010b). There is also acknowledgement that organized criminals often trap undocumented migrants ‘into a cycle of exploitation’ to perform street level offences (SOCA, 2010c: 1; Chin, 2000). Fifteen magistrates’ court pre-sentence reports were analysed in order to identify whether these classifications adequately describe counterfeit DVD street sellers. The key findings suggest that a humanistic perspective is needed to highlight that street sellers encounter poor material circumstances (Grover, 2005). You are in a public house when you are approached and asked if you want to buy a DVD of the latest blockbuster movie? It all seems fairly innocuous but behind this transaction can lie a deeper interaction potentially involving illegal migration, intimidation, exploitation and extreme poverty. This is the subject of this year’s best paper prize, which has been awarded to Shelly-Ann McDermott for her article ‘Counterfeit DVD street sellers: Serious career criminals or individuals in a cycle of exploitation?’ It is especially pleasing as it is the first time the award has been presented to a current practitioner and is in the best traditions of reflective practice that have been the hallmark of probation work. The winning article uncovers an under researched area of criminal activity that has largely been framed within discussions regarding the loss of revenues to the entertainment industry through the infringement of copyright and intellectual property. Based on a small-scale study of pre-sentence reports prepared on individuals charged with selling counterfeit materials in the London Probation Trust area, the author highlights the human costs for those involved in these street level offences, Probation Journal 60(2) 115–118 a The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0264550513490611 prb.sagepub.com The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice many of whom are undocumented migrants. Fearful of being deported and lacking in social capital, they can find themselves at the mercy of organized criminals who exploit their vulnerability, sometimes with tragic consequences as in the case of the 2004 Morecambe Bay disaster in which 21 Chinese cockle pickers lost their lives. After the Morecambe Bay tragedy, the Gangmasters Licensing Act (2004) established a Gangmasters Licensing Authority to regulate labour in industries were migrant workers are prevalent such as agriculture, forestry, horticulture, ‘shellfish gathering’, and the food processing and packaging industries. A subsequent report by Oxfam (2009) some five years later found that there were still people working in dangerous environments for as little as £50 for a seven days’ week and that the gangmasters were expanding into other poorly controlled sectors such as the construction, hospitality and care industries. The charity highlighted that many workers were recruited from overseas to the United Kingdom with the promise of employment and accommodation. This sometimes led to a form of ‘debt bondage’ as they were made to pay back agency fees and, after other ‘debts’ were deducted, they found themselves working excessive hours with very little financial means or protection and too scared to report their exploitation for fear of losing their jobs and accommodation. The resultant insecurities that they encounter can increase the risk of acquisitive offending, but, as Shelly-Ann McDermott points out, prosecutions often capture only the ‘minnows or street peddlers’ and not those who profit from such activities. She further goes on to state that ‘the illegality surrounding migration deserves attention both as a determining context and in order to empower practitioners to challenge the mechanisms through which individuals and groups experience vulnerability’ (p. 241). As such, plans to speed up the justice process (and enacted following the riots of 2011) might be detrimental to the way in which probation staff assess the needs of these individuals, and they may reinforce cultural pathologies and stereotypes that in turn could further heighten their invisibility, vulnerability and marginalization. It remains to be seen how a payment by results approach would be employed in respect of individuals at either ends of this complex criminal activity. If the motivations for offending are complex, then the motivation shown by the individual to engage with interventions and ultimately desist from crime are equally so. This is reflected in the first two articles in this edition. In ‘Assisted desistance and experiences of probation supervision’, Sam King explores the early transitions towards desistance amongst a group of 20 individuals using semi-structured interviews. The majority of those interviewed viewed their experiences of probation positively, particularly in relation to building self-confidence and improving decisionmaking skills. Conversely, some respondents were much more critical of the services provided by the external agencies they had been referred to. As the author points out, this raises fundamental questions about the direction taken within Transforming Rehabilitation and the preparedness of providers to take on the primary role of supporting individuals during the complex journey towards desistance. One of the key insights provided by desistance research is that since desistance is an inherently individualized and subjective process it follows that interventions are most likely to be effective where they encourage and respect self-determination 116 Probation Journal 60(2)