Intelligence-led policing

Intelligence-led policing (ILP) is a policing model built around the assessment and management of risk.[1] Intelligence officers serve as guides to operations, rather than operations guiding intelligence.[2]

Calls for intelligence-led policing originated in the 1990s, both in Britain and in the United States. In the U.S., Mark Riebling's 1994 book Wedge - The Secret War between the FBI and CIA spotlighted the conflict between law enforcement and intelligence, and urged cops to become "more like spies." Intelligence-led policing gained considerable momentum globally following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. It is now advocated by the leading police associations in North America and the UK.[3]

Although intelligence-led policing builds on earlier paradigms, such as community policing, problem-oriented policing, and the partnership model of policing,[3] it originated as a rejection of the "reactive" focus on crime of community policing, with calls for police to spend more time employing informants and surveillance to combat recidivist offenders.[4]

Recently,[when?] intelligence-led policing has undergone a 'revisionist'[5] expansion to allow incorporation of reassurance and neighbourhood policing.[6]

  1. ^ Willem de Lint, “Intelligence in Policing and Security: Reflections on Scholarship,” Policing & Society, Vol. 16, no. 1 (March 2006): 1-6.
  2. ^ Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Intelligence-led policing: A Definition,” Archived 2006-05-15 at the Wayback Machine RCMP Criminal Intelligence Program. Retrieved 13 June 2007.
  3. ^ a b Edmund F. McGarrell, Joshua D. Freilich, and Steven Chermak, “Intelligence-led Policing as a Framework for Responding to Terrorism,” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Vol. 23, no. 2 (May 2007): 142-158.
  4. ^ Audit Commission "Helping With Enquiries: Tackling Crime Effectively" (London: HMSO, 1993).
  5. ^ Hale, C., Heaton, R. and Uglow, S. (2004) "Uniform styles? Aspects of police centralization in England and Wales", Policing and Society, Vol. 14, no. 3 (2004), 291-312.
  6. ^ Maguire, M. and John, T. "Intelligence led policing, managerialism and community engagement: Competing priorities and the role of the National Intelligence Model in the UK", Policing and Society, Vol. 16 no. 1 (2006): 67-85.