<p>According to the Home Office, serious and organised crime is a threat to the UK’s national security, and preventative civil orders are an important tool for tackling the threat. One such order is the Serious Crime Prevention Order, which as its name implies was designed to prevent an individual’s involvement in serious, if not organised, crime. Its use in managing those involved in serious organised crime has been described as an important feature of the UK’s approach to combating the problem. At the time of writing the Labour government is proposing: “a major upgrade” to Serious Crime Prevention Orders. Yet despite the stated importance of Serious Crime Prevention Orders and the recent proposals to upgrade them, there has been very little written on their actual use and management. Most of the literature is legalistic and often situates the orders in terms of liberties or rights, and the academic literature that does provide insight into their use is relatively old. The main objective of this paper is to collate and supplement the existing knowledge on the use of the orders using secondary literature and official documents. By obtaining and analysing official data it provides more recent data and detailed insight on the nature and scale of their use before positing particular recommendations for policy makers. The article is aimed at those interested in policing, security, the policing of organised crime and the use of ancillary orders and public money.</p>