Intelligence-Led Policing

Intelligence-Led Policing

Intelligence-led policing is a form of policing that emphasizes intelligence gathering and analysis that targets crime offenders. This information is meant to influence the decision-making process in the police operations like developing strategies and allocation of resources to fight crime, rather than the operations influencing the process of intelligence collection. It stands on the principle of information sharing between law enforcement agencies to make the crime control process much more manageable. It has its origin in the United Kingdom, where it was first put into practice at Kent Constabulary, where, as a result of a budget cut, the police focused on information gathering to nub the property crime offenders. The perceived conflict between the CIA and the FBI was hindering the war on crime. The adoption of intelligence-led policing empowered the police more in the war (Ratcliffe, 2012).

Criminal Intelligence refers to collated information that is analyzed and dispersed about by the police or any other anti-crime agencies giving details on the details on certain criminal elements or on the type and nature of the crime. The

It is particularly useful when dealing with organized crime. Criminal intelligence is developed by using surveillance, informants, interrogation, and research, or maybe just picked up on the “street” by individual police officers.

Some larger law enforcement agencies have a department, division, or section specifically designed to gather disparate pieces of information and develop criminal intelligence. One of the most effective ways of applying criminal intelligence is first to record it (store in a computer system), which can be “mined” (searched) for specific information.