tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/australian-crime-commission-4782/articlesAustralian Crime Commission – The Conversation2015-03-29T23:15:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/393132015-03-29T23:15:06Z2015-03-29T23:15:06ZIce in Australia: overseas crime gangs, not bikies, are the threat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76040/original/image-20150325-14488-173bjuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Methylamphetamine, in particular crystal meth or 'ice', has been the subject of much scrutiny in Australia in recent times.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/David Crosling</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.crimecommission.gov.au/publications/intelligence-products/unclassified-strategic-assessments/australian-methylamphetamine">Australian Crime Commission (ACC) report</a> into the methylamphetamine market in Australia makes for sombre reading. Released this week, it reveals that more drugs are coming into Australia and certain forms of drug usage are increasing. A variety of crime groups are playing a role in the drug trade.</p>
<p>Methylamphetamine, in particular <a href="http://www.druginfo.adf.org.au/drug-facts/ice">crystal meth or “ice”</a>, has been the subject of much scrutiny in recent times and concern is growing among Australian authorities. The <a href="http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/lrdcpc/article/2132">Victorian parliament</a> held an inquiry in 2013-14 into ice’s impact in the state and the government recently <a href="http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/LRDCPC/Ice_Inquiry/Government_response.pdf">released</a> an “Ice Action Plan” in response.</p>
<p>So, how does the ACC intelligence document help inform the debate around ice? What practical lessons can Australian society and law enforcement draw from it?</p>
<h2>The current Australian market</h2>
<p>According to the 2013 <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/alcohol-and-other-drugs/ndshs-2013/">National Drug Strategy Household Survey</a> (NDSHS), 7% of Australians aged 14 and above reported using amphetamine or methylamphetamine at least once in their lifetime and 2.1% reported recent use. This has remained consistent with <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=32212254712">2010 figures</a>. </p>
<p>What has changed, and significantly so, is the type of methylamphetamine Australians are using.</p>
<p>Users now prefer crystal methylamphetamine. This produces more powerful physical and psychological reactions than powder forms of the drug. Users of powder forms decreased from 51% to 29% while ice use more than doubled from 22% to 50% between 2010 and 2013. National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre findings from 2014 support this conclusion.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76039/original/image-20150325-14494-941lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76039/original/image-20150325-14494-941lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76039/original/image-20150325-14494-941lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76039/original/image-20150325-14494-941lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76039/original/image-20150325-14494-941lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76039/original/image-20150325-14494-941lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76039/original/image-20150325-14494-941lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76039/original/image-20150325-14494-941lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Recent use of speed, base and crystal/ice by injecting drug users nationally, 2000-2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">2014 National Drug Trends Conference</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The increased addiction/dependence potential for ice as the purest form of the drug is also evident. A great proportion – 25% of regular ice users – are using at least weekly. This is a much higher rate than the 2.2% of regular powder users who use weekly. </p>
<p>Increased demand for the higher purity of ice results in Australian users in particular being prepared to pay premium prices for this form of the drug. Figures suggest that the Australian price per kilogram of crystal methylamphetamine is A$320,000, whereas in the United States it is A$100,000. In China, a country flagged by the ACC report as a key player in transnational organised drug crime, the cost is as low as <a href="http://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/DrugFreeAustralia/Changing_the_Market_Culture_for_Methamphetamines_updated_1_October_2014.pdf">A$7000 per kilogram</a>. </p>
<h2>The business of drugs</h2>
<p>The business of illegal drugs shares some elements with the business of selling legal products. Common features include lots of working capital, a steady supply of raw materials, manufacturing facilities, reliable shipping and distribution and marketing networks. But it is knowing what criminal networks are operating at what level that is the key to an effective law enforcement response.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75940/original/image-20150325-14515-v6u93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75940/original/image-20150325-14515-v6u93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75940/original/image-20150325-14515-v6u93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75940/original/image-20150325-14515-v6u93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75940/original/image-20150325-14515-v6u93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75940/original/image-20150325-14515-v6u93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75940/original/image-20150325-14515-v6u93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75940/original/image-20150325-14515-v6u93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Terry Goldsworthy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>ACC data indicates that detections of clandestine laboratories decreased by approximately 6% in 2012-13. The weight of precursor material being detected at the border has also decreased, despite the number of detections increasing. </p>
<p>Conversely, the weight and amount of amphetamine-type substance (ATS) detections at the Australian border, in particular detections of ice, continue to increase. This suggests that the outstanding threat is increasingly coming from abroad. Small-time Australian players are growing reliant on transnational crime groups.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75941/original/image-20150325-14484-64z979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75941/original/image-20150325-14484-64z979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75941/original/image-20150325-14484-64z979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75941/original/image-20150325-14484-64z979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75941/original/image-20150325-14484-64z979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75941/original/image-20150325-14484-64z979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75941/original/image-20150325-14484-64z979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75941/original/image-20150325-14484-64z979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian Crime Commission</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ACC’s <a href="https://www.crimecommission.gov.au/publications/intelligence-products/illicit-drug-data-report/illicit-drug-data-report-2012-13">Illicit Drug Data Report</a> flags increased seizures, border detections and associated arrests for ATS (excluding MDMA) at record highs. This echoes the findings of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime <a href="http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr2014/World_Drug_Report_2014_web.pdf">2014 World Drug Report</a>, which identified global trends of record-high seizures of methamphetamine as compared with other ATS.</p>
<p>The ACC report indicates that transnational organised crime involvement in high-volume precursor importation and trafficking remains at high levels. Its concern about illicit importations concealed by legitimate markets is clear, particularly from a law enforcement perspective. </p>
<h2>Bikies are just part of the picture</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.qld.gov.au/law/laws-taxes-elections-and-complaints/queensland-laws-and-regulations/new-criminal-bikie-gang-laws/">Various governments</a> in Australia have made much of the role of outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) and their involvement in the methylamphetamine trade. </p>
<p>Tellingly, in this week’s report, they rate only two mentions. One is as a part of the wider criminal gang picture; the other as a case study for involvement in the drug trade in a small rural Victorian town. </p>
<p>Nowhere was the critical evidence of their dominance of this particular drug market put forward, despite what many <a href="http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/LRDCPC/Submissions/Submission_52_-_Victoria_Police.pdf">law enforcement agencies</a> have been claiming in recent years. The report outlines the following crime groups as being active in the meth market:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… members of Australian-based outlaw motorcycle gangs, Australian organised crime groups as well as persons of Middle Eastern, Eastern European and West African backgrounds, and Vietnamese, Chinese, Canadian, US and Mexican serious and organised crime groups.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As has been previously shown, while <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-justifies-the-means-why-queensland-is-losing-the-bikie-war-21948">OMCGs</a> no doubt have some involvement in the drug trade, they are not the kingpins.</p>
<h2>What are transnational organised crime groups?</h2>
<p>Transnational organised crime (TOC) groups are the most concerning threat to Australia when talking about organised and serious crime. They are clearly involved in the methylamphtamine market. More than 60% of Australia’s highest-risk <a href="https://www.crimecommission.gov.au/publications/intelligence-products/crime-profile-fact-sheets/methylamphetamine">criminal targets</a>, including transnational targets, are involved in the methylamphetamine market.</p>
<p>The UNODC <a href="http://www.unodc.org/pdf/crime/publications/Pilot_survey.pdf">looked at</a> 40 TOC groups and identified a number of their typologies and characteristics.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76056/original/image-20150326-12314-1odos23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76056/original/image-20150326-12314-1odos23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76056/original/image-20150326-12314-1odos23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76056/original/image-20150326-12314-1odos23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76056/original/image-20150326-12314-1odos23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76056/original/image-20150326-12314-1odos23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76056/original/image-20150326-12314-1odos23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76056/original/image-20150326-12314-1odos23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Transnational organised crime group typologies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of these TOC groups, 70% carried out criminal activity in three or more countries. Most were involved in multiple criminal enterprises. They were actively involved in corruption and routinely employed violence and engaged in money laundering.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the ACC’s report has a broad base and lacks detailed or overly new evidence. One issue that does seem to bear consideration is the rising role of transnational crime groups. With so much focus on domestic gangs as the peak criminal threat, perhaps we have taken our eye off the ball of the real criminal threat outside Australia’s borders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How does the ACC report help inform the debate around methylamphetamine, and what practical lessons can Australian society and law enforcement draw from it?Terry Goldsworthy, Assistant Professor in Criminology, Bond UniversityLaura McGillivray, Adjunct Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Society and Design, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/165182013-07-31T04:38:08Z2013-07-31T04:38:08ZIt’s the (illegal) economy, stupid: the ACC on organised crime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28400/original/kwxdn92p-1375244030.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Organised crime is a 'market' for illicit goods and services just as any other market, and should be treated as such, according to a new ACC report.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We all know how organised crime works, right?</p>
<p>Form a shadowy group (think the Japanese <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/yakuza-magazine-yamaguchi-gumi-shinpo">Yakuza</a>, the Calabrian <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22315469">‘Ndrangheta</a>, the <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/mexico/130227/sinaloa-cartel-mexico-drug-war-US-global-economy-conflict-zones">Sinaloa Cartel</a>, an outlaw motorcycle gang - take your pick), preferably one shrouded in secrecy and ritual. Then, establish a reputation for violence and use it to become the underworld’s one-stop shop for something illegal (drugs or extortion are popular choices).</p>
<p>Only that’s not how organised crime works. At least, not entirely. That’s not how it has worked for some time now. </p>
<p>The release yesterday of the Australian Crime Commission’s (ACC) <a href="http://www.crimecommission.gov.au/publications/organised-crime-australia/organised-crime-australia-2013-report">report</a> on organised crime in Australia signals an important shift in the way the ACC explains and presents the problem to the Australian public. It highlights the role of individual entrepreneurs in meeting demand in international markets for illegal goods and services.</p>
<p>Make no mistake about it - criminal organisations are very real. But increasingly, “organised” criminal activity is being organised not by structured hierarchies with mythical codes of honour and silence, but rather by that supposedly most efficient of allocation mechanisms - the market.</p>
<h2>Focusing on illegal markets</h2>
<p>Think about the effects of global economic integration on legal economic activity in the modern era. Instead of one single company producing something, the production process becomes spread across different companies and countries. Individuals and groups specialise in parts of the supply chain. Intermediaries broker deals between parties in that supply chain. Those same patterns can be observed in illegal markets. </p>
<p>Wholesaler-retailer relationships are common, as with the Sicilian Mafia and Calabrian 'Ndrangheta acting as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-06/worlds-biggest-cocaine-importer-arrested-shopping-in-colombia/4803918">distributors of Colombian cocaine</a>. There are many examples of sub-contracting: groups with an established expertise in violence offer their services to other organisations: see, for example, Russian <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/49689/stephen-handelman/the-russian-mafiya">Mafiya groups</a> forged in the tumultuous post-Soviet period. Third-party services to facilitate transactions are also well-known: if you’re negotiating with another gang, a third party can take hostages from each of you to reduce the risk of reneging. </p>
<p>The prominence of large bureaucratic criminal structures varies in different industries. In some, like human trafficking across Europe, you can see networks of individuals and small groups are connected by little more than a profit motive. Business is business, and the broad trends in the way we chase profits are the same regardless of whether someone makes a law against the product you’re selling. </p>
<p>The essence of the ACC’s report is that rather than targeting a specific organisation or industry, we need to think about the factors that help facilitate illegal markets: what the ACC refers to as enablers. Two good examples of such enablers are corruption and technology.</p>
<h2>Why corruption and organised crime go hand-in-hand</h2>
<p>The ACC’s <a href="http://www.crimecommission.gov.au/publications/organised-crime-australia/organised-crime-australia-2011-report">last report</a> on organised crime from 2011 contained just six brief mentions of corruption. Yesterday’s report focuses more directly on corruption as a major factor enabling illegal markets and organised crime, and rightly so. </p>
<p>Operating in an illegal market for a prolonged period of time requires being able to protect yourself from the authorities tasked with finding and prosecuting you. If you can’t protect yourself, you need to buy that protection from someone else. Otherwise, you go out of business.</p>
<p>The most direct and common way that those involved in criminal enterprise insure against being caught is to corrupt a public official. This is old news, and criminal organisations have long had an incentive to do this. As production chains in illegal markets become atomised, however - and demand for illegal goods and services is met not by one group, but by looser coalitions of smaller groups and individuals - then access to corrupt or corruptible public officials becomes a commodity in itself.</p>
<p>Those with the right contacts can specialise in producing protection for others - selling information that can be used to avoid investigation and prosecution. When you read news about outlaw motorcycle gangs <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-corruption-we-should-focus-on-the-ranks-not-the-rats-13990">allegedly corrupting or infiltrating</a> police ranks, this doesn’t just mean that bikies have access to information, it means they’re able to sell it on to others. In the modern illegal economy, corruption (or more specifically, corrupt protection) can be considered a fundamental market in the production of almost any other illegal good or service.</p>
<h2>Technological progress and productivity in illegal markets</h2>
<p>Just as advances in communications and computer technology have provided substantial improvements for business and individuals engaged in legitimate economic activity, so too have they provided benefits for criminal enterprise.</p>
<p>Until recently, when Apple improved the iPhone’s encryption technology, it was often the case that if you worked for a big company and were given a company phone, it’d be a Blackberry. The encryption technology used in RIM’s Blackberry made it a popular choice because of the additional security it provided for users. </p>
<p>This security also gave rise to a new phenomenon: bikies with Blackberries. Using encrypted phones made it easier for Canadian outlaw motorcycle gangs to coordinate cannabis trafficking into the US because it was harder for law enforcement to spy on their communication. Bikies in Australia have <a href="http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmViaXoucG9saWNlLm5zdy5nb3YuYXUlMkZtZWRpYSUyRjMxMzU4Lmh0bWwmYWxsPTE%3D">found the Blackberry popular</a> for the same reason.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28397/original/kynyk56q-1375243231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28397/original/kynyk56q-1375243231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28397/original/kynyk56q-1375243231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28397/original/kynyk56q-1375243231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28397/original/kynyk56q-1375243231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28397/original/kynyk56q-1375243231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28397/original/kynyk56q-1375243231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ACC head John Lawler at the launch of yesterday’s report into organised crime, which may mark a turning point for how it is presented to the wider public.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Peled</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Online fraud has also become an increasingly lucrative industry owing to the economies of scale involved. Spam a few hundred thousand email accounts, and even if you only have a success rate of 1-2%, there’s money to be made. As the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s <a href="http://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Targeting%20scams%202012.pdf">report</a> on scam activity in 2012 makes clear, the success rates are often much higher than this.</p>
<p>Another example of the way technology helps bring together disparate groups and individuals in illegal markets for pharmaceuticals (identified by the ACC as a growing problem). Through websites like Silk Road, consumers of illegal drugs can now order products online and take delivery at home. Of course, as in all illegal markets, you <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/underweb-anger-as-silk-road-seller-does-a-runner-20130226-2f36q.html">might not</a> always get what you pay for.</p>
<p>The supply side is an even better example of the role of technology. In the grey and black markets <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/01/11/168967999/black-market-pharmacies-and-the-big-business-of-spam">for pharmaceuticals</a>, real drugs that go missing from factories end up in the warehouses of illegitimate online pharmacies. They are then advertised to consumers via spam sent to mailing lists which are purchased online from hackers who have hacked company databases for contact details: for instance, when Sony <a href="https://www.soe.com/securityupdate/pressrelease.vm?locale=en_US">was hacked in 2011</a> and over 24 million accounts were compromised.</p>
<h2>Focus on the market, not the mob</h2>
<p>The reframing of the problem of the ACC in yesterday’s report may seem like a minor issue, or a matter of rhetoric. It is not. </p>
<p>In the modern era, combating organised crime and corruption is as much about understanding the nature of the supply and demand for the goods and services being traded, and learning about the structure of those industries, as it is about targeting specific notorious criminal groups.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Pottenger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We all know how organised crime works, right? Form a shadowy group (think the Japanese Yakuza, the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, the Sinaloa Cartel, an outlaw motorcycle gang - take your pick), preferably one…Mike Pottenger, Lecturer, Statistics & Political Economy, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/122152013-03-11T03:35:56Z2013-03-11T03:35:56ZDrugs in sport? Why our memory of scandal fades so readily<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20614/original/kmzy2h9y-1361837980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Recent controversies in sport won't keep the fans away.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julie Edgley/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite the recent controversy arising from the ACC report into organised crime and drugs in sport, it is unlikely that substantial numbers of fans will stop supporting their sport.</p>
<p>In fact, we are surprisingly poor judges of how a particular event will make us feel into the future. In other words, we rely on how we feel right now to predict how we might feel about something later. Psychologists call it affective forecasting.</p>
<p>We also have a tendency to forget the way that we thought we would feel, and revise our predictions after the fact to suit how we actually feel at that time of remembering. This is all done without us being aware that it is going on, i.e., it happens outside of our reflective capacity.</p>
<p>In the case of how we will feel into the future about current negative events, such as the drugs and organised crime scandal currently enveloping Australian sport, we are actually lucky enough (or not, depending on how you feel about sport) to have a type of psychological immune system that protects our ego, shielding us from thinking that we might be bad decision-makers.</p>
<p>When a something bad happens to us, the psychological immune system comes to our defence, similar to the way that our physical immune system creates a range of defences when we encounter a virus. But, because the psychological immune system is mostly unconscious, we don’t realise that it is doing its job. Which is a good thing - we wouldn’t want to know that we are being tricked into being overly optimistic.</p>
<p>So what happens is that we have a tendency to overpredict how a good or bad event, such as the scandal, will influence our future behaviour. The reality is, that as long as the scandal doesn’t go on for too long, we will very quickly return to the normative state – the way we felt before the scandal happened. If you think about it, just before every season starts there is a scandal of some sort, and yet each year the football codes get larger crowds and more supporters. We eventually return to a level of equilibrium in relation to our feelings about the attitude object; whether negative or positive.</p>
<p>And to top it off, as time goes on, we are poor at remembering how we felt when we first heard about the bad event. So the anger we are feeling right now about the drug use, is unlikely to be long lived, particularly if the whole thing is sorted out quickly. In fact, the mere act of remembering has been shown to have a positive effect on our attitudes toward the object, regardless of whether the original feeling was positive or negative.</p>
<p>So, we might say today that we will never go to another game, but as the season goes on, as our social world returns to its equilibrium, we will tend to go back to the way we were before, and forget how angry we were at the time.</p>
<p>That said, if the scandal continues for a long time, and more and more negative information is revealed into the season, it is likely to change some supporters’ overall emotional norms about the game, and have some effect on people who were perhaps not as wedded to the game as others. But this may have happened in any case - the scandal may have simply sped the process along.</p>
<p>This affective forecasting can also be related to one of the big mistakes made by the Australian government when they started to talk about the carbon tax well before it was made into law – the government let it fester in the public for too long, which meant that the new norm was to feel negative about it. The “feelings” persist about the government (because this is the new norm), but, in general most people don’t feel the same level of negativity about the carbon tax that they did a year ago, simply because (for most people) it has been “absorbed” into our everyday lives.</p>
<p>Although the process of predicting emotions tend to be fairly imprecise, over-predicting how we will feel and misremembering predictions are actually a useful way to bolster our ego, and continue to feel optimistic about our ability to predict the future. </p>
<p>We have to trust how we feel about something now, otherwise we would never get anything done and we would start to think our emotional responses can’t be trusted. </p>
<p>Our ignorance of this tendency helps to keep us motivated, and create a level of optimism so that we avoid what we expect to be awful and aim for what we hope will be good. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Harrison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the recent controversy arising from the ACC report into organised crime and drugs in sport, it is unlikely that substantial numbers of fans will stop supporting their sport. In fact, we are surprisingly…Paul Harrison, Senior lecturer, Graduate School of Business, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/121082013-02-14T02:12:23Z2013-02-14T02:12:23ZThe ‘perfect injustice’: is Australia more corrupt than we think?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20138/original/5nc3txrv-1360561107.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=611%2C558%2C3177%2C2031&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">According to Plato, corruption is the 'perfect injustice' appearing to be good and just when you are not.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Erlend Aasland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Corruption is pervasive, diverse and present in almost all areas of society. From the “greed is good” heyday of the 1980s that encompassed the rise and fall of corporate high-flyers such as Christopher Skase, right through to the 2000s and the spectacular collapses of Enron and WorldCom in the US and HIH in Australia, the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, corruption seems to continue unabated. </p>
<p>The new year, filled as usual with good will and hope, proved no different. We are only half-way through February (not even the longest or cruellest month) and already we are confronted with the ICAC Investigation of alleged corruption in the financial and political affairs of Eddie Obeid, the ongoing saga of Craig Thomson, including criminal and civil charges, and now the staggering news of tsunami proportions: that the social compass of the nation, the holy grail of what’s good, decent and noble beyond the murkiness and double-dealings and back-stabbings of politics is also allegedly corrupt to the core. </p>
<p>According to the Australian Crime Commission’s ongoing investigation, sports corruption across all codes is rife with extensive links to organised crime and match-fixing. Who would have believed it? Yet we should not be surprised.</p>
<p>Plato the venerable philosopher anticipated corruption more than 2500 years ago. He foresaw what happens when power, deception, secrecy and concealment and the abuse of trust converge. </p>
<p>In the Republic, Glaucon asks Socrates who could be expected to behave justly if presented with the power to become invisible and do whatever one liked without fear of detection and punishment. The Myth of Gyges in Book 2 of Plato’s Republic is about corruption: a condition of total deception by which the unjust make themselves appear just and proper. </p>
<p>Plato labels this the “perfect injustice” appearing just when one is not. Gyges, a simple shepherd used a magical ring that rendered him invisible to take the place of a king. He used its power to gain authority, a position of trust, and to commit crimes under a cloak of invisibility that served his interest rather than the common good; all the while maintaining an outward pretence of justice and propriety. He did this with total impunity. </p>
<p>It is not inconceivable that if Gyges lived in Australia today, he might have also been awarded the Order of Australia for services to the public and the common good. Plato was not short on irony.</p>
<p>The financial and human costs of corruption have been and are enormous. Billions, if not trillions of dollars have been lost to both corporations and shareholders - in the case of Enron, employees who had invested most of their life savings in that company lost everything. </p>
<p>Reputations have been destroyed, lives turned upside down, and a number of heads of corporations and institutions have been imprisoned. Political corruption in the Watergate case forced President Nixon to resign. The social cost is incalculable: the loss of trust, which is essential for social cohesion and our democratic way of life.</p>
<p>And this brings us back to Plato. His Myth of Gyges clearly demonstrates how things can come apart and go terribly wrong for a society that allows conditions of perfect injustice to fester: an unwholesome collusion of power that involves the lack of accountability, the abuse of public trust, and an exclusive motive for self-gain that overrides the motive for the public good, all perpetrated in secrecy and under the pretence of “public propriety”.</p>
<p>Fortunately for us good journalism still exists to ferret out and expose corruption. Acting like a Platonic “guardian”, the Guardian brought the News of the World affair to light. Fairfax publications such as The Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review, as well as News Limited’s The Australian, have also in recent days been providing in depth coverage and analysis of the ICAC Obeid investigation.</p>
<p>In an age where information has become a valuable marketable commodity we need good, vigilant and ethical journalism more than ever. We also need the inculcation of an ethical culture within all the estates of democracy – the government, the media, the police, the church and sport. </p>
<p>The moral of Plato’s Myth of Gyges is that ultimately behaving badly is bad for everyone including bad for one’s own self-interest. Being good is its own reward precisely because it pays to think and act ethically. Honest people may not have money to burn but neither do they get burned by greed for money and power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12108/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward H. Spence is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) Charles Sturt University (CSU) and the 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, The Hague, Netherlands. He teaches and researches media and new media ethics and the ethics of emerging technologies as well as corruption in the School of Communication and Creative Industries at CSU. He is the author (with Seumas Miller and Peter Roberts) of the book Corruption and Anti-corruption: A Philosophical Appoach, Prentice Hall, 2005. </span></em></p>Corruption is pervasive, diverse and present in almost all areas of society. From the “greed is good” heyday of the 1980s that encompassed the rise and fall of corporate high-flyers such as Christopher…Edward Spence, Senior Research Fellow at the ARC Special Research Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.