Intelligence Policing and Challenges it Faces

¶ … police adopted intelligence-Led policing? What are the problems associated with its implementations?

Over time, policing methods have advanced, with the most recent strategy in improving response time of police being intelligence-led policing (or ILP). ILP is still in its initial developmental stages, is still not wholly understood, and has not yet been adopted by all agencies (Taylor, Kowalyk and Boba 2007). Studying police managers' views and attitudes can help recognize obstacles. Depending on findings of research, when initiating this strategy, top police officers obtain the information required for foreseeing problems and understanding supervisors' mind-set. Strategy transformations spring from shifts in objectives. For instance, London's Metropolitan police was organized by Sir Robert Peel for focusing not on response, but on prevention of crime (Johnson 1988). Improvements were generated through technological advances like automobiles and telephones. These improvements served to lessen response time, as well as expand an officer's patrol coverage (Phillips 2012).

Intelligence-driven methods have their roots in financial limitations, which are modern policing's reality. New public control of policing via financial audits (Crawford 1997) and growth in information demands from the society at risk (Ericson and Haggerty 1997) have produced a wealth of statistical information, which enables external agencies to check police performance. A large contribution to this intelligence-led policing tactic traces back to two influential reports of UK, which dealt with value-for-money strategies and financial management (Ratcliff 2002).

Policing is an affair that revolves around adequate, accurate knowledge. In the last 15 years, people have voiced their opinions in moving from a reactive, intuition-driven, traditional policing approach to one, which is intelligence-driven, pre-emptive, and proactive (Collier 2006). The latter promotes use of evidence-based, accurate data and evaluations for providing direction to management and guiding the actions of police at every level of a policing facility. The aim is complementing intuition-driven actions with knowledge obtained from assessments on amassed operational data, like criminal characteristics and crime figures (Collier et al., 2004; Viaene et al. 2009).

Notably, ILP brought to mind the significance of supporting decision-making in policing with improved information at every level of the organization. This plays the role of a framework in developing process and technology integration essential for gathering, analyzing, and providing relevant facts to the police in their attempts to curb crime and safeguard the public. It also serves as the ideal facilitator of an operationalized business intelligence approach with enterprise aims (Viaene et al. 2009).

ILP avoids the detailed parameters such a milieu's practical aspects. Thus, the Amsterdam-Amstelland Police Department (AAPD) has centered itself upon a more advanced framework, namely CompStat, to drive their efforts. CompStat was begun in 1994 by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) (Weisburd et al., 2004). This process is strategic and goal-oriented, and makes use of operational strategy, information technology (IT) and managerial accountability for guiding police actions (Walsh and Vito, 2004). It aims at instantiating ILP in U.S. policing, by setting an example to other, international police departments (Viaene et al. 2009).

Implementation of intelligence-led policing

Beginning from the mid-80s, declines in cost of digital information storage and computing power, accompanied by digital operating system streamlining have together enabled extensive diffusion of numerous new technologies that facilitate fighting crime. With computerized police records, which allow better managerial and statistical operation of police departments, a realization came about that these very records could have potential use in intelligence and crime investigations, and crime mapping, in some instances. Interest of law enforcement officials in adopting geographic information systems for mapping crime incidence transpired in tandem with research which recognized criminal behavior and crime patterns in the developing environmental criminology field (Ratcliff 2004a).

With initiation of ILP, better IT was viewed as a solution to manage the expected surge of intelligence and information anticipated as an outcome of a modification in the new approach. The import of an efficient IT intelligence system was recognized by the police as well as by the businesses that are rapidly filling this niche market of intelligence. Intelligence systems have replaced conventional collator cards, as the former can stock and sort large data quantities; subsequently data requirements also have grown. However, several issues exist with regards to police databases; these must be addressed (Ratcliff 2002).

It might be possible for policing to benefit from ILP approaches, which are IT-driven. However, many researchers have come forth with alternative justifications for bureaucrats' enthusiasm to gather information. They have indicated that key changes to society at the turn of twentieth century have been a factor in the rising public demand for information. Communities' growing fragmentation, growth of risk society, insecurity and fear, has given rise to an enormous need for enhanced knowledge and security (Maguire 2000). Currently, private sector firms are filling up this market; its growth is evident through the development of private security companies, like insurance companies, burglar alarm manufacturers and shopping-mall security guards. The public sector should also fulfill its need for enhanced information, and police forces are now viewed as the custodians of most of the knowledge pertaining to crime (Ratcliff 2002).

ILP is a cutting-edge approach to furthering efforts in prevention of crimes. It is a targeted, strategic, and future-oriented strategy which concentrates on the recognition, assessment and control of existing and emerging risks and issues (de Lint 2006). ILP does not deal with amassing of crime information; rather, it integrates data into police's strategic mission, including curbing of numerous terrorist and criminal activities (Carter and Carter 2009). The strategy shares many features with other approaches of policing. Still in the embryonic stage, ILP is yet to mature adequately for appropriate examination to ascertain its success. Thus, agencies may be led to pause until growth of ILP in other police organizations transpires. Despite its potential barriers, ILP will become an extensively-adopted strategy in future (Phillips 2012).

Currently, the National Intelligence Model (NCIS 2000) offers an operational framework for organizing policing-related intelligence. Simply put, this model can be described as supporting an organized procedure of collecting, storing and examining intelligence for backing a tasking conference that analyses issues and accordingly assigns police resources. The model endorses a specialized meeting structure for developing quick time, as well as long-term solutions to issues. It also defines numerous analytical products, which must be produced for supporting the process of tasking. The model bases itself on a well-defined distinction between crime which shows local effect and can be handled by a simple command unit (level 1); cross-border offenses which impact two or more command units (level 2); and national and global-level crimes (level 3) (Cope 2004).

Street level local police are vital sources of primary data (Manning and Hawkins 1989) which is crucial to crime analysis development. However, the authority linked with holding back or getting into information resources represents a key barrier manifested all through the 'necessity to understand culture', which surrounds intelligence work. The analysts' role as translators of information, in this regard serves as a potential challenge to the power of officials; it is noted by Chan (2001: 146) that: As information represents a fountainhead of power, IT can result in power struggles. IT can hamper street level police's autonomy and discretion, while concurrently enhancing IT specialists' status. The potential value of primary data may justify why it is seldom shared (Cope 2004).

Why it has been adopted by the police

The significance of understanding and managing risk in modern-day societies has shaped crime-control systems (Maguire 2000). ILP typifies concerns with recognizing, prioritizing and interceding to reduce risk. Intelligence may be defined in the form of information developed for guiding police operations. Five stages are central to the ILP process; these are: Acquisition; it highlights the necessity of an information framework for assisting police forces so that they have the means for gathering, storing and cataloguing information meant for being cross-examined. Analysis; it transforms raw data into actionable information by looking for crime data patterns, linking criminal activities or creating comprehensive suspect profiles. Review; this stage offers the means for prioritizing intelligence such that the risks and crimes that are most critical can be first acted upon. Lastly comes evaluation of action by way of analysis. Research, however, proved that it is rare to carry out this stage as analysts often lack the capability of conducting evaluations. Also, limited feedback can be obtained from operational officials regarding the action taken by them. This process may be linear, i.e., information passes through individual stages for development for police action, or on the basis of feedback at every stage, thereby forming a cycle of intelligence (Cope et al. 2001; Cope 2004).

Investigation of crime is critical for ILP to function effectively, as it attempts to provide appropriate data to appropriate individuals at appropriate times. (Fletcher 2000: 114). This investigation integrates information gathering and review into practicable summaries (e.g., networks charts or crime maps) for easier interpretation. When police can better comprehend criminal issues' nature, recommendations for police action logically ensue. All through research, the idea of analysts offering recommendations concerning police tasking sparked substantial debate among police officers as well as analysts. Civilian criminal analysts were apprehensive of their lack of expertise in policing operations (Cope, 2004).

ILP strives for better policing efficiency, but it is also accompanied with other, sometimes conflicting, efficiency methods. Many police organizations have performance measures which attempt at measuring every possible factor; therefore, it may be possible that ILP's benefits will vanish in a mire of micro-management and operational statistics (Ratcliff, 2003).

Australia's New South Wales (NSW) Police Service is dependent on the Computerized Operational Policing System (known commonly as COPS), for handling the bulk of the service's operational policing IT support. This colossal system deals with a wide range of tasks, which comprise of calls for public-performed service, intelligence reports, crime recording, and traffic accidents. It probably would not be unfair to suggest that the system suffers a problem, which is common to several police IT systems- obsolescence. COPS is a sluggish and cumbersome system and, for recording a single theft, may require an official to move through lots of information screens in a non-mouse, non-Windows text-based environment. One IT trainer at the NSW Police College claims that it may take probationary cops, who are new to the system, more than an hour for recording the details regarding a simple burglary incident. Under such conditions, it is likely that some of the information may simply be dropped to reduce time. This consequently reduces information quality and the accrued intelligence value. NSW's police service is not the only one that has an IT structure mismatched to handling intelligence (Ratcliff 2002; Anderson 1997).

A system known as PROMIS is adopted by Australian Federal Police (AFP) (it is also employed by National Crime Authority and the Northern Territory police). Data entry in this system is more user-friendly than in COPS, because of its Windows environment. Unfortunately, however, PROMIS is a system for case management, not for intelligence. While entering data into the system is easy, extracting valuable intelligence is a wholly different situation, which often requires cleaning of data and duplicate entries' removal. In several police services, implementation of new technology takes long, and before they are finally put into operation, a concise surfing of commercial and policing Internet websites indicates that this technology has invariably been surpassed by something more advanced elsewhere. The implementation of case management or statistical systems as make-do intelligence systems, while failing to recognize the flexible requirements of contemporary policing intelligence, will frequently develop a substantial restriction on the capability of criminal intelligence. Collating details of different incident is just one of the aspects in the intelligence cycle. Upon collation of this information, it has to be examined corresponding to other relevant information before worthwhile and pertinent intelligence may ensue (Anderson 1994; Ratcliff 2002).

An increase in data maintained in police databases and a rise in the number of police databases accessible to intelligence officers is now evident. In recent years, only a few policing intelligence programs have taken advantage of the global digital revolution, however, more recently an explosion has been seen in complex investigative tools. These include generic programs for data-handling, such as Access and Excel, which can be utilized for sorting incident and crime databases, and professional software packages like 'Analyst's Notebook' from i2 and Xanalys' "Watson," which are specifically customized to aid crime investigations. This list of programs may also be expanded to include ManInfo (some version of which has been adopted by most of the police services in Australia) and other Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which can map incidents and crime, and supply a spatial investigation proportion to the work of intelligence officers. ManInfo is utilized along with other tools, having some degree of sophistication, by NSW's Police Force in its Operations and Crime Review (OCR). OCR represents a platform for executives to evaluate a Local Area Command's performance in his attempts at reducing crime; it is supplemented by analytical and cartographic assistance that charts crime patterns and distributions over some course of time (Anderson 1994, 1997; Ratcliff 2002).

It was evident that the new planned intelligence entities required an investigative skill to be able to generate genuine intelligence. During the initial stages, solution was provided by a keen support staff of civilians to carry out this analysis. Initial speculation that this role necessitated a background in policing has proved unfounded. Analysts are deemed as key intelligence unit members and answer directly to Intelligence Coordinator (chosen from among the ranks of police inspectors). From a twelve-analyst-team at the beginning, with a minimum of one in every area's intelligence team, the current analytical organization comprises 26 members, with no less than two in every area (Anderson 1997).

Analysts assume crime-partner examination duties as well as intelligence assessment ventures. A succession of basic products for conveying the work of analysts to operational staff and managers has been developed. A weekly account reviews crime levels, both by geographic location and offense type. Priority locations and crimes are analyzed further and integrated with present intelligence on suspects to make well-informed recommendations for forthcoming intelligence collection and enforcement activity. Weekly reports are a critical source record for weekly resourcing conferences (a British variation of the COMPSTAT process of NYPD). Use of basic products offers pre-set points for investigative contribution while enabling individual exploratory support (Anderson 1997).

Challenges of the strategy

The aim of these several strategies is improvement of the policing process. Assessments of these approaches reveal that slow transformations take place in bureaucratic policing agencies. Police services have powerful organizational cultures, which rigidly hold on to conventional policies, practices and methods. It has been depicted by research that managers at the middle level of the policing organization resist strategies which may lead to some sort of loss of their power (Deukmedjian and de Lint 2007). When policing strategies are enacted by top-level managers, and officers at the street level implement them, studies have proven that these mid-level officers influence policy implementation. Thus, it is imperative to examine the opinions and attitudes of mid-level officials toward ILP. Bearing this information in mind, one can forecast the failure or success of the strategy (Phillips 2012).

Research reveals that resources, like personnel and funding, are often restricted, thereby, limiting new programs' implementation (Deukmedjian and de Lint 2007). This has to be considered with certain crime analysis elements. Financing, technology, personnel and training require steadfast resources that could otherwise be assigned to conventional policing tactics. As per a Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Academy (NA) research, two-thirds of the managers at middle level strongly disagreed or, at least disagreed, with the fact that crime analysis finances could be better utilized for investigation or patrol. This outcome portrays that managers see crime analysis financing as a suitable resource allocation (Phillips 2012).

Old-fashioned tactics and strategies sustain the policing culture (de Lint 2006). Law enforcers value "actual police work," and not activity which is considered as being outside conventional police action. The culture has traditionally valued rapid service-call response, random patrol, and criminal arrests over arduous inquiry and long-term emphasis required for criminal analysis. Studies indicate that fewer than 50% of criminal analysts feel that they are accepted as a part of policing culture. They are of the view that supervisors understand their role, while patrol officers do not (Carter and Carter 2009). However, 86% of police managers reviewed by the NA strongly agreed, or at least agreed, to acceptance of crime analysts. This outcome is encouraging, as managers may play the role of intermediaries in improving officer-analyst relations. This may provide motivation to analysts to deliver quality reports, while at the same time encouraging street-level officials to employ analysis (de Lint 2006; Phillips 2012).

A key role of police supervisor is in the form of an officer motivator, predominantly when modifications occur in duties or the organization (Carter and Carter 2009). Crime analysis is accepted as a part of police culture, by supervisors; 85% supervisors urge officers to make use of intelligence reports, which is a positive outcome, when combined with analysts' acceptance. Effective implementation of ILP appears likely with supervisors showing positive attitudes toward crime analyses (Phillips 2012). Training for crime analysis is indispensable at every level to educate as well as influence the organization to accept the approach (Dunnighan and Norris 1999). It has been stated by 4% of officers that they were given adequate guidance for being comfortable with performing crime analysis. More than half the supervisors reviewed reported acquiring abundant instruction to be able to understand it; 16% obtained sufficient training to gain awareness; 30% were yet to receive guidance. As per this study, crime investigation and reporting is accepted and promoted by supervisors. This is an encouraging result, given that managers were given limited instructions. Thus, ILP support might increase with increased level of instruction (Phillips 2012).