Intelligence Led Policing sounds like a great concept, police forces, intelligence gathering entities, local law enforcement and federal agencies all working together to protect the common citizen. What could be more patriotic or flag waving than that? The only problem with that entire scenario is highlighted by a passage in the proposal to accomplish that objective. The proposal states that in order to facilitate the sharing of all intelligence gathered by any law enforcement entity is to for a "Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council (CICC)."

This CICC will be comprised of "local, state, Tribal and Federal law enforcement personnel detailed from their respective agencies." (Criminal, 2002, p. 7).

The CICC will also be structured to allow representation from 'all types of law enforcement agencies'.

The executive summary of the proposal makes a big deal out of being able to share information with all groups in order to "protect the American public against terrorism and all other criminal acts" (Criminal, p. 6). The question then becomes, who protects the American public from the CICC?"

Currently law enforcement groups at all levels are protective of the information singularly gathered. If these groups were to share all information at every level the information, whether true or not, can be used in a manner that would take away the constitutional right of American citizens to be considered innocent until proven guilty. In today's world of capable technology assisting law enforcement, analysis of criminal intent and mischief is readily available to all entities.

Sharing the resulting information from such analysis with all other law enforcement will open the door to mismanagement and corruption. Such corruption is already evident in many law enforcement entities and to provide them with additional cannon fodder would be a huge mistake.

Works Cited

Criminal Intelligence Sharing: A national plan for intelligence-led policing at the local, state and federal levels (2002)

http://www.theiacp.org/documents/pdfs/Publications/intelsharingreport.pdf, Accessed December 15, 2007