The Maritime Smuggling Project: Challenges Within Collaborative Maritime Policing in The Netherlands
The Netherlands hosts a significant drug industry involving global crime groups targeting local professionals, such as fishers for drug smuggling, real estate agents for money laundering, and harbor masters for marina access. To raise awareness of potential criminal involvement, various government o...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cogitatio
2024-08-01
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| Series: | Ocean and Society |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cogitatiopress.com/oceanandsociety/article/view/8446 |
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| author | Mauro Boelens Yarin Eski Danique De Rijk |
| author_facet | Mauro Boelens Yarin Eski Danique De Rijk |
| author_sort | Mauro Boelens |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The Netherlands hosts a significant drug industry involving global crime groups targeting local professionals, such as fishers for drug smuggling, real estate agents for money laundering, and harbor masters for marina access. To raise awareness of potential criminal involvement, various government organizations collaborate within an Organized Crime Field Lab. This approach shifts the focus from repressively apprehending criminals to protecting legal businesses and professionals by enabling the public to inform, detect, and report smuggling activities, and by helping relevant sectors identify and regulate activities that facilitate organized crime. This article examines how maritime policing professionals experience the process, outcomes, and challenges within the Maritime Smuggling Project (MSP) and its contribution to building a more resilient society against criminal involvement. Based on 34 interviews, hybrid observations, and an online questionnaire with MSP participants, the study suggests that maritime criminal justice relies on the idea that a resilient community is less likely to engage in or facilitate criminal maritime activities. However, it also indicates that collaboration in itself is not enough to create an impact on policing. Findings reveal that innovations in criminal justice need open‐ended, long‐term, impact‐focused responses from projects like the MSP, along with maritime professionals willing to adopt new policing methods. Yet, traditional, path‐dependent criminal justice institutions often undermine these innovations by prioritizing immediate, measurable, short‐term results that benefit their organization instead of the overarching goal of preventing maritime crime and societal involvement in it. As a result, even those tasked with developing innovative approaches are limited by institutional constraints and ingrained habits. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-51e629dc8dd44bdc9bb27f2a24c0c77c |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2976-0925 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-08-01 |
| publisher | Cogitatio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ocean and Society |
| spelling | doaj-art-51e629dc8dd44bdc9bb27f2a24c0c77c2025-08-20T03:24:46ZengCogitatioOcean and Society2976-09252024-08-011010.17645/oas.84463678The Maritime Smuggling Project: Challenges Within Collaborative Maritime Policing in The NetherlandsMauro Boelens0Yarin Eski1Danique De Rijk2Boelens Advies, The NetherlandsFaculty of Social Sciences, Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The NetherlandsFaculty of Social Sciences, Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The NetherlandsThe Netherlands hosts a significant drug industry involving global crime groups targeting local professionals, such as fishers for drug smuggling, real estate agents for money laundering, and harbor masters for marina access. To raise awareness of potential criminal involvement, various government organizations collaborate within an Organized Crime Field Lab. This approach shifts the focus from repressively apprehending criminals to protecting legal businesses and professionals by enabling the public to inform, detect, and report smuggling activities, and by helping relevant sectors identify and regulate activities that facilitate organized crime. This article examines how maritime policing professionals experience the process, outcomes, and challenges within the Maritime Smuggling Project (MSP) and its contribution to building a more resilient society against criminal involvement. Based on 34 interviews, hybrid observations, and an online questionnaire with MSP participants, the study suggests that maritime criminal justice relies on the idea that a resilient community is less likely to engage in or facilitate criminal maritime activities. However, it also indicates that collaboration in itself is not enough to create an impact on policing. Findings reveal that innovations in criminal justice need open‐ended, long‐term, impact‐focused responses from projects like the MSP, along with maritime professionals willing to adopt new policing methods. Yet, traditional, path‐dependent criminal justice institutions often undermine these innovations by prioritizing immediate, measurable, short‐term results that benefit their organization instead of the overarching goal of preventing maritime crime and societal involvement in it. As a result, even those tasked with developing innovative approaches are limited by institutional constraints and ingrained habits.https://www.cogitatiopress.com/oceanandsociety/article/view/8446criminal justicemaritime drug smugglingmaritime policingorganized crime |
| spellingShingle | Mauro Boelens Yarin Eski Danique De Rijk The Maritime Smuggling Project: Challenges Within Collaborative Maritime Policing in The Netherlands Ocean and Society criminal justice maritime drug smuggling maritime policing organized crime |
| title | The Maritime Smuggling Project: Challenges Within Collaborative Maritime Policing in The Netherlands |
| title_full | The Maritime Smuggling Project: Challenges Within Collaborative Maritime Policing in The Netherlands |
| title_fullStr | The Maritime Smuggling Project: Challenges Within Collaborative Maritime Policing in The Netherlands |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Maritime Smuggling Project: Challenges Within Collaborative Maritime Policing in The Netherlands |
| title_short | The Maritime Smuggling Project: Challenges Within Collaborative Maritime Policing in The Netherlands |
| title_sort | maritime smuggling project challenges within collaborative maritime policing in the netherlands |
| topic | criminal justice maritime drug smuggling maritime policing organized crime |
| url | https://www.cogitatiopress.com/oceanandsociety/article/view/8446 |
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