From Empire to Europe: Evolving British Policy in Respect of Cross-Border Crime

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the metamorphosis of Britain from a global, imperial power to a full (if sometimes ambivalent) member of the modern regional partnership that is the European Union (EU). During the same period, transnational criminal activity was transformed from an arena in which criminal fugitives sought merely to evade domestic justice through self-imposed exile to an environment in which improved travel and communication facilities enabled criminals to commute between national jurisdictions to commit crime or to participate in global criminal enterprises run along modern business lines. This development is so serious that it is considered in some quarters a threat to national security and the very fabric of society.¹

British political attitudes to international law-enforcement cooperation during this period were characterized by diffidence until deliberate nonengagement eventually gave way to active participation. Progress was not smooth, and in the absence of a coherent proactive strategy external forces drove a reactive policy. This is evident in the documented policy toward practitioner cooperation as well-international policy development. Having become more actively engaged in the EU, Britain is now seeking to drive the EU criminal policy agenda. This article documents British policy evolution from imperial diffidence to aspiring European driving force and considers how the post 9/11 U.S. policy of aggressive external intervention now influences EU crime policy.

The Empire and Interpol

On December 24, 1952, the governor of Gibraltar, a British colony, received a telegram from an organization of which he had never heard, requesting the arrest of named suspects on suspicion of piracy. The request identified neither the country nor jurisdiction seeking the arrests. Three days later the request was withdrawn. The organization was the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), known today as Interpol following its reconstitution in 1956.²

Notwithstanding the rescinding of the request, the governor sought advice from the Colonial Office in London about the ICPC, its authority to request arrests, and how any future requests should be handled. For the staff at the Colonial Office, the governor's letter raised "several questions of some nicety."³

These delicate issues are key to any discussion of international police cooperation. Police functions differ from state to state: Who might properly seek assistance? For what? How best might assistance be given? Within any given state, there may be more than one policing function undertaken by more than one policing agency.⁴ Policing is a sovereign issue for a state, couched in domestic political sensitivities that only become more complicated by intervention on behalf of another state. These were issues with which Britain had declined to engage officially when the first International Criminal Police Congress was held in Monaco in April 1914, a forerunner to the ICPC, which was formed in 1923. Indeed, at that conference there was no police representation in the British delegation, which comprised instead a magistrate from the south-coast seaside town of Hove and a barrister and two solicitors from London.⁵

For British authorities, forced to consider such issues in order to respond to the governor's letter, there was the additional issue of the relationship between the British colonies and third parties such as Interpol, and how, in an imperial context, this relationship could best be managed. At the time, of all the colonies, only Singapore was a member of the ICPC. The Colonial Office consulted the Foreign Office and the Home Office. In a briefing to the attorney general, it was explained that "the United Kingdom is a member of the Commission and the [British] representative is Mr R. Howe," assistant commissioner, Metropolitan Police.⁶ Howe was in charge of all Metropolitan Police detectives. In the absence of a national police service, national police functions (such as they were in 1953) and representation abroad fell by default to the Metropolitan Police Service, which otherwise had geographical responsibility for policing in London.⁷ The Metropolitan Police Service was, and remains, the largest single police force in Britain, and its proximity to the seat of domestic and imperial government made it...