Police Use of Intelligence Networks for Reducing Crime

• NCJ Number: 238321
• Author(s): Charles L. Johnson
• Date Published: 2010
• Length: 260 pages
• Sale Source: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Issue Overview; Instructional Material
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This book examines the role of communications and intelligence in policing, based on an evaluation of a unit within the Office of the Washington State Attorney General.

Abstract

The basis for this study is a program that assists criminal investigators throughout Washington State clear homicides, sexual assaults, and other serious felonies. The findings of an evaluation of this program add to the knowledge of law enforcement communications barriers that hinder the making of timely connections between offenders and offenses. A review of the literature on various police models is first presented as a primary step in the process of understanding the challenges facing the building of an intelligence-led conception of policing. This review notes that the most commonly used policing organizational model involved a shift from command and control through a rigid hierarchy to the systematic decentralization of police decisionmaking under the community-based policing model, which includes problem-oriented policing (POP) that targets specific crimes for strategic uses of police resources. This results in what Jerry Radcliffe (2008) describes as "An integrated strategy that combines some sort of the benefits of problem-oriented policing with the targeted and objective approach of proactive policing to be the direction in which proponents of intelligence-led policing are heading." The current book identifies barriers to this movement toward intelligence-led policing (ILP). The study found that information flow essential to ILP is often hindered by self-interest and a lack of trust among members of the criminal justice community. The development of trust-based relationships across various law enforcement units and jurisdictions is essential for the sharing of information that can link crimes to their perpetrators. Law enforcement personnel must also change the mind-set that their job tasks are the most important in solving crimes. ILP also requires that agencies in different jurisdictions adopt intelligence-gathering capabilities that are compatible with one another. 110 references, a subject index, and appended tools and materials used in the study