London Police to Focus on Human Trafficking and Extreme Pornography

According to new reports in London, Metropolitan police will have the responsibility for policing extreme porn and indecent images of children. They will also have to deal with prostitution and human trafficking.

This creation of this unit is either going to be seen in two different ways. People are either going to see it as a vital step forward in the fight against human trafficking and exploitation, or people are going to view it as a serious waste of police resources.

Back on April 1^st, a new command was launched. It is called the SCD9, Human Exploitation and Organized Crime. It brings together expertise in the fields of clubs and vice, human trafficking and emigration crime. According to Metropolitan Police, this major new command will employ about 39 officers under the leadership of Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin.

SCD9 is suppose to bring together one unit in London for policing for things like facilitation of human beings into the UK, on and off street prostitution, tackling violence and drugs, tackling violence within promoted music events, casino fraud and money laundering, identity document abuse, and obscene publications like extreme pornography and the sharing of indecent images of children via the internet. The creation of the SCD9 is a victory for people who have been campaigning against the closure of its predecessor, the Met's specialist human trafficking team.

The specialist human trafficking team was to be shut down on the expiry of a strictly limited three year funding period for the Home Office. However representations by a number of charities, as well as concerns over a possible increase in traffic during the 2012 Olympic Games, led Metropolitan Police to rethink the decision.