Blue Crime

Transnational organized crime at sea, known as ‘blue crimes’ are one of the core issues on the maritime security and ocean governance agenda.

What do we know about transnational organized crime at sea? How do such blue crimes manifest, how do they intersect and are related to crime on land? What kind of data on blue crime is collected?

Evidence Base

These are the core questions that the Blue Crime Evidence Base project is addressing. Funded through a grant by the Economic and Social Research Council by the UK the goal is to collate and synthesize our knowledge on blue crimes to guide policy but also identify gaps. The evidence base provides a review of existing research on a wide variety of blue crimes. I can be accessed here.

What are blue crimes?

A conceptualization of blue crimes, what is the value of the concept and how they vary is provided in our article.

Bueger-and-Edmunds-2020-Blue-Crime Download

Other related research and activities:

New Policy Brief – ‘Maritime security sector governance and reform’

SafeSeas’ Tim Edmunds and Scott Edwards collaborated with the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF) on ‘Maritime security sector governance and reform’ (MSSG/R). The policy brief, available here, is a backgrounder document intended to provide a consideration of the challenges and opportunities of security sector reform and governance in the maritime sector. The maritime domain is of critical importance to global trade, communications, power relations, and environmental sustainability. Yet many states lack the capacity to properly police their maritime ...

SafeSeas researchers present at international maritime security forums

In November 2022 SafeSeas researchers attend several important international maritime security forums. Dr. Jan Stockbruegger will be attending the 50th Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE) meeting in Bahrain. He will be providing an academic perspective to the event, drawing on a recent research article on maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean. He argues that SHADE should concentrate on its core business, that is to enhance awareness and deconflict naval operations. Professor Christian Bueger will be attending the Shared Awareness ...

UK Publishes New National Strategy for Maritime Security

The UK published a new National Strategy for Maritime Security (NSMS) on 15 August 2022. The NSMS comes at a critical time for the UK maritime sector. Maritime security is key to delivering the UK’s ambitions in foreign, security and defence policy, as well as for blue economic growth and environmental sustainability. At the same time, maritime threats – from hostile states, terrorist groups, and blue crimes such as smuggling, piracy, and illegal fishing – continue to evolve and multiply ...

Panel – Towards a ‘blue’ criminology: How should we study transnational organised crime at sea?

Scott Edwards presented 'Blue criminology: towards a trans-disciplinary understanding of crime at sea' at the 24 Hour Conference on Global Organized Crime. The panel, moderated by SafeSeas co-director Tim Edmunds, also featured Mercedes Rosello (Leeds Beckett University) presenting 'Towards a ‘blue’ criminology: How should we study transnational organised crime at sea?', Anna Sergi (University of Essex) presenting 'The journeys of complex crimes through the port, from the sea and into the city', and Nigel South (University of Essex) presenting 'Oyster ...