Reasons for Establishing the Centre

While developments in electronic communications and information technology, transport and trade offer countries many economic and social benefits, they also pose new and complex crime prevention and investigation problems for governments, law enforcement agencies, banking and financial institutions. The freer movement of people, money, goods, services and ideas creates institutional vulnerability and opportunities upon which organised criminal activity thrives. In 1997, the Study Group on Transnational Crime of the Asia Pacific Council for Security Co-operation identified 19 crime types impacting on regional security. Examples are narcotics production and trafficking, firearms and people trafficking, smuggling, fraud, corruption, money laundering, internet crime, paedophile activity, natural resources poaching and illegal shipment of hazardous waste.

As traditional national borders become less of a barrier to criminals, everyday policing is being internationalised. However, the resulting cooperative enforcement practices and extensions of municipal law lead to a multiplicity of jurisdictional problems. Moreover, the increasing sophistication of multi-jurisdictional crime requires at least as sophisticated a response employing new knowledge, skills, technology, mandates and lines of communication. In particular, the multi-disciplinary skills required in transnational crime prevention and investigation, additional to those necessary for traditional policing work, include specialised legal, commercial, information technology and political skills. The Centre will develop as a focal point for exchange of information and research on these matters among Asian and Pacific countries.