COP, POP, and now there is Intelligence-Led Policing (ILP). Where would our lives be if we didn't have researchers to conduct in-depth analysis of how we should do our jobs as cops? Don't answer that. Actually, as a research based practitioner and instructor of community-oriented policing, I know that if it were correctly applied, supported, and continuously evaluated, the strategy works phenomenally well. The same is true with Problem Oriented Policing. Eliminating that root cause is much more effective than arresting the same people for the same stuff every day.
UK Leads The Way
"The Irish blew up my ass for thirty-five years", stated a former special-forces operator of the British Army who served with the Regiment for several tours in Northern Ireland. While at the ILEETA Conference I spoke with him about the policing challenges facing law enforcement professional's around-the-world. When talking about UK terrorist bombings and what the local police constables there have learned compared to our officers here, my new friend stated, "We've just been doing it for a long time"; they had to learn.
He's right; what every cop knows, regardless of what country you serve, is that experience is everything. Thankfully, the Brits have learned how to police a community and have passed it on to us. COP drew its strengths from the Peel Principles. POP by extension of COP (still Peelian influenced), and Scotland Yard paved the way for the technological approach to crime scene investigations, and other high-tech crime fighting measures the Yard still pioneers today. I guess if the IRA tried to kill our president via IED, as they attempted to do to the Queen of England in 1980s, then we too would learn that patrol efforts need to be embedded into the community for intelligence gathering with the purpose of pre-emptive enforcement.
Uniform Division Responsibility
The backbone of every police agency is made up of those working patrol, and the officers working the street seemed to be tasked with everything from unlocking cars to responding to active shooters. Why not add another task to their already filled plate? If you are a beat cop, you already know the answer to this. It's been proven time and time again, in every arena, that those best suited to make tactical decisions are those functioning tactically. Therefore, when seeking sensitive information from the citizens you serve who is best suited to obtain it? Only those that your citizens see, speak to, and interact with daily. They are Bobbies, Beat Cops, Basic Patrol Officers, whatever you want to call them; the men and women in blue.
Historically, the intelligence gathering activities of law enforcement were reserved for a specialist within the agency, usually a detective assignment. If your agency is large enough, you may have an entire unit devoted to such a task. That's where I did it, as a special task force detective assigned to work regional dope cases. However, that's where ILP differs from policing history. Intelligence collection activities today, as part of ILP efforts, concentrates on obtaining data from a variety of sources; general assignment detectives, school resource officers, DARE, GREAT, Traffic, Vice, Corrections, Narcotics, JTTF, and last but not least, Patrol Operations, the largest part of any police agency - no matter what part of the world you walk a beat.
Once data is obtained, it must be vetted to determine accurateness, investigative complexities, special sensitivities, and overall usefulness to just not your agency but to everyone else. Analysis is multifarious, but indispensable. Having information is one thing, determining why is matters is something else; knowing how or when to use it is the hardest part.
The Police Manager: Stonewall to Change
Organizational changes are incremental. Police agencies accept new ideas slowly, if at all. Let's face it; the chain-of-command was never designed to stimulate maximum creativity for those at the lower rungs. That's where we are getting hurt when it comes to intelligence gathering initiatives here in the CONUS. Street cops aren't doing it, because the higher-ups haven't trained them or pushed the effort into mainstream policing. Fortunately, there are some initiatives that will foster more ILP efforts that even the most ineptly bureaucratic law enforcement administrator (whether federal, state or local) couldn't hamper: Fusion Centers. They are coming to a neighborhood near you, if you don't already have a similar one operating under a different name, such as Terrorist Early Warning Group or TEW. Fusion Centers were designed with one purpose in mind: get everyone to talk to one another and share information, which is what the 9/11 Commission painfully confirmed to the world wasn't being done in U.S. law enforcement. However, Fusion Centers do bring another vital partner to the intelligence gathering and information sharing matrix - the private sector. Considering that roughly 80% of our nation's critical infrastructure is owned or operated by the private industry, corporate and private security is now in the spot light as a new anti-terror component with law enforcement.
As a nation, we continue to advance our defensive methodologies in response to the never-ending threat of terrorism. Whether we borrow already proven techniques, such as ILP, develop new ones, or modify what we already have, it doesn't matter. What is important is that we never stop trying to stay ahead of those who intend on destroying us. I am sure my friend from the Regiment would agree with me when I say that the risks have never been greater. This is a war we cannot lose. When it comes to one fanatically deranged person unleashing the destructive power of a suit case nuke, we don't have thirty-five years to get blown up, as he did. As protectors of our society, we must live inside of our community, not apart from it if we hope to intercept terrorists. The information is out there. Someone knows something. It's up to us to get it.
