‘Disruption’ is a smarter approach to controlling serious and organised crime which can be resilient to conventional methods of crime control. As the number of serious and organised crime offenders in the UK continues to grow and the internet is lowering the barriers to perpetrating serious crime at scale, disruption represents an intelligence-led, proactive and solutions focused response. In a globalised and digital world disruption will become a much more important part of crime control.

In this Perspectives on Policing paper Michael Skidmore examines what disruption is, its scope, if its success can be measured and whether it actually represents a ‘justice’ outcome.