Family-based crime: an EUCPN toolbox on effective prevention

Family-based crime is both a crime problem and a criminality problem. It is a crime problem because family members are organised in tightly-knit offender groups, committing all kinds of crimes (from robbery and pickpocketing to human trafficking and drug trafficking). It is a problem of criminality because crime runs in families: children in criminal families are at risk of “inheriting” their parents’ criminal behaviour, network, and opportunity structure. Crime preventionists therefore face a dual challenge: keep active members from committing more crimes while preventing that other family members take over.
The European Crime Prevention Network has published a Toolbox on Family-Based Crime. It advocates for an integrated, holistic preventive approach, in which multiple actors take ownership of the problem and share the responsibility for tackling it. Along the way, the Toolbox address issues of confidentiality and information exchange in multi-agency co-operations.
One important observation is that preventionists and policymakers often have skewed expectations of certain types of interventions with respect to reducing family-based crime. The Toolbox discusses which types of interventions are promising, proven effective, but also which ones are ineffective and which ones may be difficult to implement or present ethical issues.