Malcolm Graham: Disorganising the criminals

The Evening News is right to tell readers about the success of recent police efforts in tackling organised crime groups, but there's much more to this story than just another police crackdown.

At the heart of any sustained and meaningful improvement in community safety is a strong desire for change amongst local residents, and intolerance of criminal behaviour.

Lothian and Borders Police has got a big part to play in this, and they all know that. However, the most successful long-term impact against organised crime groups is to stop them in their tracks at a local level, through community support for police action.

The police can't be everywhere all the time, but with increasing help, we can ensure criminals have nowhere to go to make ends meet. Whilst everybody else is pulling in the purse strings, these criminals don't care that we're all paying to keep them in their Armani jeans and Rolex watches.

Estimates of the social and economic cost to Scotland of drug misuse start around 2.5billion, and it's estimated that the cost to every man, woman and child through fraud alone is 330 each year.

Some real foundations for success and safer communities have been laid. The police have increasingly shared information to ensure that public contracts can't go to companies backed by organised crime groups, and through joint efforts with others we're narrowing down any opportunities for criminals.

With your help, and a united front from businesses and public authorities alike, we can prevent them from operating in the first place.

Finally, we're studying the risk factors that lead to young people becoming involved in organised crime. We're working with young people to show that aiming for the high life never leads to a happy life.

Malcolm Graham is the head of CID of Lothian and Borders Police