Knowledge Based Policing
Some of the innovations in policing included the adoption of community policing which sought to tap into the public support and increased interaction with the public to cut back crime, reduce fear among others. Community policing took the form of forming partnerships with the communities, transformation of the police structures to be more accommodative of the public participation, management systems of the police as well as developing problem solving capacity that was useful to coming up with innovative solutions in fighting crime.
The shift towards community policing arose out of concerns that there was a widening gap between the police and the public, brought on by the heavily bureaucratic and legalistic nature of police.The need for increased communication and the equally pressing need of focusing on crime prevention which concentrated of target hardening, community and situational crime prevention emerged and have since grown and adopted in one form or another across the world.
Problem oriented policing was another innovation in policing which relied on ordinary police officers to develop helpful assessments as well as strategies and responses by analyzing specific crimes or disorders. The problem oriented policing model enjoyed favorable public support and built the foundation for proactiveness in crime prevention and control as opposed to the traditional criminal chasing policing. It increased communication between the police and the public among other successes, but it was also marred by abuse of power and authority by individual police officers due to the huge discretion invested in them, creating a conflict between active crime fighting and prevention as well as generating strains in relationships between police officers.
Knowledge based policing
The soaring crime rates in the United Kingdom that characterized the period around the 1990s resulted in increased calls for the police to not only be not only efficient cost wise but more effective as well especially in the face of globalization, which had effectively removed the physical and technological barriers across nations fuelling transnational crimes among others. The police have too, acted for a long while as a source of data for risk management to varied organizations, in a society obsessed with risk, coupled by the growing competition from the private security industry, the police were under pressure to alter its basic approach in crime control.
The report by the Audit commission in 1993 established that the police were hardly efficient in using available resources, the force lacked an integrated and efficient system of accountability and further that the force needed to lay greater emphasis in tackling criminals other than the individual crimes.A Subsequent report by HMIC, a police oversight body, in 1997 as well as other official publications before it provided the ground work for the setting up of intelligence based policing.
The realization that police were spending far too much resources as well as their time in reacting to crime rather than targeting offenders, led to the emergence on knowledge based policing which emphasizes more targeted, strategic and forward looking approach, in controlling crime. In order to increase effectiveness in combating and preventing crime, police were to increase the use on surveillance, informants and intelligence in targeting potential offenders. The report recommendations were implemented across the United Kingdom and has since been adopted by numerous European countries, Australia, New Zealand as well as the United States especially in the wake of September 11th attacks in New York.
In the United States, September the 11th attacks provided the impetus for intelligence based law enforcement that sought to builds useful networks across the world following the widely held views that the bombings could possibly have been prevented were it not for the intelligence failure. Cooperation and the global reach of crime were emphasized by the London and Madrid train bombings and the subsequent arrest of suspects in Britain, Canada and the United States.The United States homeland security outlined a new risk based approach to control crime that took into consideration the level of threat, the consequences as well as the vulnerability. The publication of Mark Rieblings doctrine on intelligence-led policing that sought to built on some aspects of the tactics used by the Israeli counter terrorism measures as well as the broken windows theory of the police department of New York (NYPD) brought into clear focus the crying need for intelligence gathering as well building partnerships, involving the community and problem solving measures. This heralded the arrival of intelligence based policing in the United States.
Intelligence based policing made a landing in Australia through the adoption of integrated measures of accountability, information and intelligence gathering, greater targeting of crimes enabled by greater intelligence gathering and its dissemination and these changes were built into the Australian constitution through the OCRs which had been modeled on New York citys police department own CompStat process.
Knowledge based policing builds on the prior models like problem oriented policing as well as community policing except that the new approach hinges on information gathering from interviews with offenders, networks of informants, surveillance of potential offenders or suspects, analysis of crimes, drawing information from the communities among other sources.Based upon the analysis of the gathered information, the police can device policing tactics towards not just preventing criminal activities or targeting, deciding enforcement targets but also gathering further information.
Although its definitions range depending on varied factors, regions and countries, it is generally accepted that knowledge based policing should comprise four basic tenets according to the national intelligence model of the United Kingdom namely targeting offenders by both overt as well as covert means, managing disorder and crime areas, investigation of possible links between crimes as well as employing preventive means which includes building both regional and international partnerships.
Knowledge based policing is an operational as well enforcement strategy geared at using both criminal intelligence as well the analysis of crimes to fight crime by determining tactics that mainly emphasize on combating as well as preventing criminal activities with a particular focus on recidivist and active offenders.The growing popularity and adoption of this form of policing across the world has brought with it changing interpretations and a growing scope but the core of knowledge based policing remains information gathering and dissemination, as well as developing collaborative, targeted strategies in crime reduction at local and regional levels as compared to the traditional policing which is hugely reactive, with disjointed case by case investigations.
Knowledge based policing is close to the problem solving approach at least philosophically, especially since both models can accommodate other paradigms and in fact does heavily rely on these other policing paradigms and their methodology such as community policing as well as problem solving. Case in point for developing priorities to focus resources, intelligence based policing uses SARA, a problem oriented policing methodology which provides evidence as basis for analyzing and responding and serves a similar purpose in the intelligence based policing by helping in the choice of crime reduction strategies. In addition SARA offers specific cases that can then be targeted upon by knowledge based policing besides the fact that problem oriented ability to compartmentalize cases and treat them separately allows for greater accountability.
On its part, community policing is crucial in building the context, the environment that is absolutely vital for the viability of knowledge based policing. The intelligence based model could and is effective on paper but if introduced in an environment which is not fitting for it, then it would definitely be unsuccessful. If for instance, under community policing, the police could be pursuing the goal of increasing public confidence and greater involvement of the public in policing activities, the introduction of an intelligence based model in this context would inevitably fail, since to begin with, intelligence cannot be shared with the public and secondly it requires secrecy and non involvement of the public to gather and disseminate the intelligence.
But intelligence led policing differs fro problem oriented policing too. The latter lays emphasis on analyzing specific crimes and tackling identified causes of the crime and most importantly places the burden of resolving the problems on individual policemen at the street level, on the other hand, while knowledge based policing equally recognizes the importance of analysis which, it in fact uses as a basis for decision making, but it is a top down model where gathered intelligence must flow up to the executive decision makers who make key decisions on the strategies and the direction of crime fighting.,
The NYPDs CompStat may be hierarchical too, but knowledge led policing in cooperates wide ranging sources of information and intelligence which is multiply analyzed to better understand the crime context and attempts to seek out lasting solutions to both local as well as international crime syndicates. This is particularly crucial since with the advent of globalization, transnational criminals gangs are a real threat to the security of a country than it ever been before. The emergence of terrorist groups which rely on money laundering activities of organized criminals to finance their activities lends a due credence to a need for a bigger picture and collaborative approach in fighting crime.
Intelligence led policing has aspects which make it incompatible with some aspects of community policing initiatives. Since the latter aims at taking care of the needs of society, the former makes decisions objectively bearing in mind the analysis of the environment and thusly the needs of the community may and often do differ from the intentions of the police.
In the United Kingdom, the knowledge based policing model is often times wrongly associated with the national intelligence agencies but intelligence led policing model is hardly similar to the latter. Even so, the national intelligence agencies offer a good framework upon which knowledge based policing model can be operated as well as judged. For instance, national intelligence models are usually evaluated on the back of its capacity to provide channels for the intelligence gathered to be effectively disseminated as well as setting proper priorities for driving crime rates down, rather than having an actual impact on the street.The national intelligence model has been popular model being adopted in the United Kingdom as a way of integrating the new policing model as well as in cooperating aspects of community policing to help quell fears of the public regarding the growing activities of the big brother.
The intelligence led model
The first stage in an intelligence led model is to interpret the criminal environment, and then the intelligence gathered this is way is passed on to people who can actually impact the criminal environment. Investigation of the crime environment is crucial since these vary widely, with differing structures as well as different people and it is important that the policies that are ultimately formed and implemented must have an impact on the original environment.
Once the environment is studied, a proper interpretation of the environment is necessary in order to provide the intelligence to pass onwards.Intelligence involves continuous process of data collection, identification of patterns if any, drawing correlations, passing on the information to relevant people or agents and obtaining the feedback of the information sent. Thus to facilitate proper intelligence, necessary structures need to be in place to facilitate the collection and subsequent dissemination of the intelligence.
For the environment to be properly interpreted, again it calls for sufficient resources to be invested in the human capital, the technology and the requisite systems necessary for the purpose and most importantly, there must be an understanding of the shortcomings of intelligence by its very nature. Setting goals that are not attainable or realistic will damage the public confidence in not only the intelligence and as such it is absolutely necessary for a policing model that pre occupies itself with dealing with the criminal rather than the specific crimes, consumers of the intelligence must be aware of the value and the limitations of the information availed to them.
Even with this understanding, it is necessary for the right infrastructure to share and ensure coordination of the information and the sourcing of data far and wide. Crime is no longer confined to some corner of England a single incident may have links regionally and with the advent of globalization may have links across the world. As such information gathered must be from as many and varied sources and integrated together in order to have a meaningful result. To ensure this, proper networks need to exist between police as well as other related agencies both at a local and regional level as well as internationally.
Once the environment has been interpreted, it is necessary to identify the decision makers. Intelligence based policing model hugely relies on leaders at various levels to make appropriate decisions that would impact on the environment. These include police commanders who allocate resources and decide on the policies to be adopted in combating crime, probation officers as well as other people or influential people who must be equipped with the proper information as to the crime hot spots among others, and depending on their understanding of the intelligence given to them reach appropriate decisions.
The intelligence should convince decision makers since the ultimate value of it depends on decision makers realizing the value or importance of the information. Objective intelligence information will have to be weighed by the respective decision makers against other considerations for example whether clamping down on a street gang would trigger a hostile media reaction among other considerations. Influencing decision makers is important for intelligence based policing model because many a time, such decision makers are separate from the police.
Then the decisions by way of specific policies or put in place mechanisms are made that would actually impact the original criminal environment and prevent a crime or drive the crime rates down. There have been considerable benefits that have resulted from such decisions as increasing surveillance or police patrols in a crime hot spot or arrest of possible offenders before the actual committing of a crime. This is the actual beauty of intelligence based policing.
There are few official evaluations of intelligence based policing approach as yet mainly because evaluators usually concentrate on the results on the street and not the management structures that produce those results, but it is only a matter of time before the figures will come through as to the effectiveness of the model. Part of the difficulty in coming up with evaluations stems from the fact that intelligence based policing varies across the globe and thusly there is not a common definition or variables that can be used to gauge the system.
Available information however, has shown encouraging results. Studies carried out in the United Kingdom point at extensive cultural, technical, structural and other teething problems that have dogged the implementation of intelligence based policing.
For instance, the new policing model required intelligence to be shared both with fellow officers as well as the bosses, and disseminated between all the police agencies in order to allow for appropriate decision making on prioritizing crime fighting policies. This comes in a context where personality cult has always carried the day. Individual police officers are recognized for their individual experience and knowledge of crime, knowledge that is used to effect arrests without any care for the bigger picture crime. Thus the subsequent implementation of intelligence based policing while may be useful in reducing crime over all, it results in loss of motivation in individual officers.
Many a person are less comfortable with the increased use confidential information, and more so of the police using informants in obtaining that information, including the fact that some of the informants get paid by the police for their intelligence. Increased surveillance by the police may reassure citizens of their security but it also raises the specter of the big brother which is unlikely to be good for increased communication between the police and the public.People are wary of increasing police activities, and perceived invasiveness of the big brother in their lives.
Intelligence based policing has equally suffered ill public relations in the United States owing the publics uncomfortable ness with intelligence in the policing activities. This stems from the events in the 1960s that led involved abuse of intelligence activities in the police investigations. Further, US government legislations resulting from these incidents forbid police from storing information in police intelligence files which has hampered the effectiveness of intelligence gathering and hence the effectiveness of the knowledge based system.
Another shortcoming of the knowledge led policing is that while it aims at cutting costs of fighting crime as well as ensuring efficiency in all policing services as was indeed intended from the outset, the model fails on efficiency grounds since it does not in cooperate all efficiency methods and attempts to try and measure just about every little detail for accountability purposes risks dragging down police operations back into the heavily bureaucratic ages. A good example is given by Sherman et al that points at the performance agreements of police officers which use a police officers response rate to calls for service and subsequently measures improvements in the rate. This, supposedly is supposed to indicate the performance of a police officer and yet, glaring research results adamantly indicate that an officers response rate or improvements thereof has no bearing at all on reducing crime rates on the street.
In addition, the obsession with performance that knowledge based policing model calls for, and which mainly concentrates on quantifiable aspects of police work for instance the number of arrests made, runs the risk of pushing police officers into chasing after trophies by concentrating on the very measurable aspects which actually have little value when compared to the mostly non quantifiable police like crime prevention. As such, the performance culture could possibly drive policing into the reactive rather than proactive force that it strives to be.
Another major draw back of the intelligence led model is the fact that it relies on tactics and strategies usually meant for few, hard core, serious criminals to fight a lot less serious, even petty offences like burglaries, petty larceny which occur in large volumes. Thus using such strategies are financially unsustainable but are invasive which will serve to erode the public support and confidence which is indispensable in combating crime as well as providing information which is necessary for knowledge based policing.
Conclusion
Knowledge based policing is fraught with difficulties and lots of vagueness in its effectiveness. This is especially so owing to the lack of uniformity across the world as to the interpretation and the stage of implementation but also because it is a relatively new policing. Even so, intelligence led policing offers an efficient, cost effective model with a tempting possibility to prevent crime. But, society must remain realistic as to what exactly can be achieved this way research shows that the polices capacity to have a meaningful impact on crime rates is in fact minimal. There is little doubt however, that increasing police collaboration with other agencies and building local, regional as well as international networks has a bearing on the level of crime, especially organized crime.
But rising police activity in the name intelligence gathering must be weighed against the big brother perception from the public which could generate hostile public opinion that could in turn undermine most of the gains that may have been attained through the knowledge based policing or indeed community policing.
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