Prisons as Ecosystems of Organised and Entrepreneurial Crime: Developing a Theoretical and Empirical Understanding

Despite the burgeoning literature on organised crime in the community, little research has focused on how and to what extent prison environments can nurture and sustain organised crime. In the last decade, the prison has become a key site for organised crime, attracting increased investment in security apparatus and personnel and requiring law enforcement agencies to adopt a greater role in the policing of prisons. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative research conducted in English and Welsh prisons, this article critically analyses the ecology of organised crime within prisons. It explores how prisons can become ‘ecosystems’ conducive to criminal activity and sets out a framework for analysis. It argues that there are five principal contributory factors to a functioning criminal ecosystem in prison: a supply of motivated offenders; suitable consumers and targets; a lack of guardianship; enablers and suitable tools and equipment. This application of the concept of a criminal ecosystem to prisons is not only novel but could also assist in the prevention of organised crime.