Intelligence Led Policing

The post-9/11 environment in the United States, the “era of Homeland Security” for American policing, has led to increasing partnerships and data sharing among various agencies to combat crime and terrorism. Some believe that the 9/11 terrorist attacks could have been prevented if not for intelligence failures, the difference between intelligence led policing today and earlier intelligence roles is that intelligence is no longer considered a specialized function for crime analysts or intelligence units. The implementation of CompStat and community policing served as a foundation for intelligence led policing (ILP), although there are substantive differences in the concepts, the similarities serve as reliable prior policy experience to allow implementation of ILP as a functional reality going forward in the United States (Ratcliffe, 2006). Contemporary “Intelligence-Led Policing” doctrine blends problem solving, environmental design, community policing, and public-private partnerships. Intelligence led policing is envisioned as a tool for information sharing both within law enforcement agencies and between all participants in the community, private sector, intelligence community, and public government. Although regional intelligence centers, also known as Fusion Centers, focus on terrorism each Fusion Center has a criminal analysis function as well as terrorism analysis components (Taylor and Davis, 2010). Before you write your initial post for this module read the sixteen-page report “The New Paradigm: Merging Law Enforcement and Intelligence Strategies” that is posted here in this module (Riebling, 2006). Then, discuss these questions: What is Intelligence Led Policing (ILP)? How does this concept of ILP relate to Fusion Centers? What are some of the challenges in the United States to the collection of data necessary for effective ILP? In your opinion what is the future role of data driven law enforcement or intelligence led policing in the American law enforcement community, does it have a role in the future of law enforcement? Please support your statements with relevant reference sources. Ratcliffe, J. (2006) Intelligence-Led Policing. New York: Routledge. Taylor, R. and Davis, J. (2010). Intelligence-Led Policing and Fusion Centers. Long Grove Il: Waveland Press Inc. Riebling, M. (2006). The New Paradigm: Merging Law Enforcement and Intelligence Strategies. Philadelphia: Center for Policing Terrorism.