Well that's what the National Crime Agency would like you to believe because it wants to double its budget. (Organised crime: NCA says its budget needs to double, BBC May 14, 2019). And when it comes to getting money out of the government fear is the key. Frightening the public is a sure route to getting access to the public purse.
When Lynne Owens, the head of NCA, was told that organised crime had actually been reducing in recent years (according to the statistics) she told the BBC "that's quite an old-fashioned way of looking at things". Er, quite.
In reality Ms Owens and the spooks under her command are well aware that gang and street crime (the sort of crime that leads to public panics about knifings) is best fought by social workers, community football teams and youth clubs. In other words if you engage disaffected youth in the community, crime goes down.
What they really want to do is use the most modern surveillance techniques to disrupt and harass anyone they feel is subversive; anyone they believe might be a threat to the way they like things to be done in comfortable Kensington and similar well to do neighbourhoods. They are fighting the battle of inequality. What they want is more inequality not less.
Posted by Jonathan Brind.