A critical perspective on the administrative approach to crime prevention: The case of labour trafficking
| Published date | 01 November 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14773708221092330 |
| Author | Hanna M. Malik,Johanna Vanto,Liisa Lähteenmäki,Jalo Vatjus-Anttila,Jon Davies |
| Date | 01 November 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
A critical perspective on the
administrative approach to
crime prevention: The case of
labour trafficking
Hanna M. Malik and Johanna Vanto
University of Turku, Finland
Liisa Lähteenmäki
University of Turku, Finland
Jalo Vatjus-Anttila
University of Turku, Finland
Jon Davies
University of Manchester, UK.
Abstract
Building on empirical data from Finnish enforcement agencies, we reflect on the challenges of the
administrative approach to crime prevention. At the operational level, we identify explicit legal and
implicit extra-legal limitations for using the administrative approach, that we call (1) ‘tunnel view’,
(2) ‘structural siloes’, (3) ‘double role’, and (4) ‘blurred lines’. At the conceptual level, we consider
the challenges of using the administrative approach in the context of labour trafficking. We argue
that the initial set-up of the administrative approach that stresses the serious and organised crime
paradigm limits understanding of the habitual and pervasive nature of labour trafficking.
Nevertheless, administrative cooperation has the potential to contribute to full ‘labour justice’
as a governance framework that coordinates the efforts of public authorities and their multidimen-
sional strategies to account for the entire labour exploitation spectrum.
Corresponding author:
Hanna M. Malik, Faculty of Law, University of Turku, Caloniankuja 3, Turku, Finland.
Email: hanna.malik@utu.fi
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2023, Vol. 20(6) 1784–1803
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14773708221092330
journals.sagepub.com/home/euc
Keywords
Administrative approach, human trafficking, labour exploitation, serious and organised crime,
regulation, crime control
Introduction
In 2010, the European Council adopted an agenda of enhancing and promoting the
exchange of information between administrative bodies and traditional law enforcement
organisations, by setting up a special European Network on the Administrative Approach
(ENAA, 2020). This was a part of a broader shift in crime prevention, from repressive
penal approaches to multidisciplinary and preventive collaboration that began in the
European Union in the 1990s. The emphasis of ‘the administrative approach’(hereafter
ADM) is to co-ordinate efforts of local government, regulatory and licensing agencies,
tax- and traditional law enforcement authorities, as well as to combine administrative,
fiscal and criminal law-based measures to counter and suppress crime. Hence, as a
form of ‘whole-of-government approach’, ADM inherently promises to tackle ‘wicked
policy problems’(Rittel and Webber, 1973) that span traditional divisions between min-
isterial areas, policy sectors and enforcement tasks (Jahnsen and Rykkja, 2020).
Despite these intentions, most EU member states are less advanced in implementing
ADM and have not developed a coordinated strategy across policy, legislation, and oper-
ational levels (Spapens et al., 2015). In Finland, while there is legislation in place to regu-
late sectors that are particularly susceptible to serious and organised crime, and by
extension labour trafficking, administrative filters have not been applied in a systematic
and coordinated way with the primary purpose to prevent and tackle crime. The data of
this article were originally obtained as part of efforts to create a national approach to
disrupt the operating environment for serious and organised crime by using ADM
(EU-Handbook, 2020; Hyttinen et al., 2019).
Building on pioneering empirical data from Finnish regulatory agencies, we examine
their understanding of administrative measures in crime prevention and the perceived
challenges of coordination between police and other public authorities. Hence, we
reveal possible gaps between the assumptions of ADM, promoted in the EU, and the prac-
tices of administrative measures, executed at the local level in member states. We focus
on the potential application of ADM to the full labour exploitation spectrum, which,
ranging from ‘routine’exploitative labour practices enabled by licit socio-political,
legal and economic mechanisms, to more severe work-related crimes, and ultimately
human trafficking, constitutes a ‘wicked policy problem’. These complex issues cross-cut
responsibilities of different public, private, and civil society actors at different levels and
traditionally have not been prioritised among the police and other criminal justice actors
(Alvesalo et al., 2014). We reflect on the initial set-up of ADM, and the potential short-
comings of applying it to these types of cross-sectional issues. We begin this paper by
grounding the basic assumptions of ADM in previous theorisations on multi-agency
cooperation. We then move to the core of our paper, offering empirical evidence to sub-
stantiate these theoretical considerations.
While we focus on the present capacity of relevant stakeholders to implement ADM in
Finland, the grounds on which national stakeholders successfully cooperate or fail to do
Malik et al. 1785
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