ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on the work of the late Geoff Pearson, in particular the Middle Market Drug Distribution Study he and Dick Hobbs undertook for the Home Office in 2001. It argues that their three key points regarding the limited size of criminal organisations operating within middle market; the relative lack of violence and the importance of ethnicity in understanding middle market activity retain currency and are now widely supported by later work. In keeping with the applied nature of the study, the chapter then considers subsequent Home Office reactions to the threat of organised crime. It argues that despite the modest threat posed by organised crime, both academics and governments have either dismissed or overacted to it, thereby ignoring a radical and liberal solution to the problem.
