IUU Fishing and Seafood Fraud: Using Crime Script Analysis to Inform Intervention

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a serious global environmental crime. It can lead to the collapse of important fisheries and the destruction of marine habitats, and it also directly threatens the food security and economies of developing countries, affecting millions of people who depend on fisheries for survival. IUU fishing also undermines the sustainability of seafood stocks of many developed countries and directly impacts these countries’ legal commercial fishing industries. Several regulatory mechanisms have been put in place at international, regional, and country levels to address the problem, but the implementation of these regulations remains a challenge. This article examines the problem of IUU fishing and seafood fraud through the application of the crime script analysis technique to (1) describe IUU fishing and seafood fraud, (2) highlight the regulations designed to address IUU fishing and seafood fraud, and (3) offer recommendations that link piecemeal and grand crime prevention policy responses to strategies that could be used by practitioners to address these problems more effectively.