Criminal exploitation: practitioner guidance

1. Introduction

1. Serious organised crime is about generating wealth at the expense of other people. It includes drug dealing, counterfeit goods, money laundering, human trafficking and cybercrime. Scotland has a Serious Organised Crime Strategy, overseen by the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce, which aims to reduce the harm caused by serious organised crime by ensuring all partner agencies work together. The strategy has 4 key objectives; to Divert, Deter, Detect and Disrupt serious organised crime. The Divert objective has 3 key priorities, one of these is to divert people on the cusp of serious organised crime – children, young people and adults. The Divert 3 subgroup has developed this guidance to support a shared understanding of criminal exploitation to help assist with early identification of those at risk from serious organised crime. It is worth noting that this document also applies to criminal exploitation which is not linked to serious organised crime. Membership of the Divert 3 subgroup can be found in appendix 1 on page 31.