Intelligence-led policing

Intelligence-led policing (ILP) is a policing model built around the assessment and management of risk. Intelligence officers serve as guides to operations, rather than operations guiding intelligence.'Risk management must guide our decision-making as we examine how we can best organize to prevent, respond, and recover from an attack . . . . Our strategy is, in essence, to manage risk in terms of these three variables – threat, vulnerability, consequence. We seek to prioritize according to these variables, to fashion a series of preventive and protective steps that increase security at multiple levels.'The collection and analysis of information related to crime and conditions that contribute to crime, resulting in an actionable intelligence product intended to aid law enforcement in developing tactical responses to threats and/or strategic planning related to emerging or changing threats. Intelligence-led policing (ILP) is a policing model built around the assessment and management of risk. Intelligence officers serve as guides to operations, rather than operations guiding intelligence. 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. Although intelligence-led policing builds on earlier paradigms, such as community policing, problem-oriented policing, and the partnership model of policing, 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. Recently, intelligence-led policing has undergone a 'revisionist' expansion to allow incorporation of reassurance and neighbourhood policing. Prior to intelligence-led policing, a responsive strategy was the main method of policing. However, as crime was perceived to outgrow police resources in the UK, there was a demand gap, and a call for a new strategy that would more efficiently use the resources available at the time Early development of intelligence-led policing took place in the UK. It was perceived that police were spending too much time responding to specific incidents, and not tackling the problem of repeat offenders. Therefore, reports by the Audit Commission in 1993 and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in 1997 advocated increased use of intelligence, surveillance and informants to target recidivist offenders, so that police could be more effective in fighting crime. The call was quickly taken up by some police forces, particularly the Kent Constabulary.Intelligence led policing was not a major proponent of policing styles until the September 11th terrorist attacks. Prior to these attacks the majority of all branches of the government would often not divulge any information to each other.The main assumptions of this theory can be described by Ratcliffe’s 3i format. As shown by the figure below,the three I’s call for close cooperation between police chiefs and intelligence analysts in order to facilitate a strategy that will impact the criminal environment.