The Role of Strategic Intelligence in Law Enforcement

Policing Transnational Organized Crime in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia

J. Coyne

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781137443878
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137443885
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book analyzes how strategic intelligence can support decision-makers in national policing organizations to anticipate transnational organized crime (TOC). The authors examine case studies from Australia, Canada and the UK, and argue for the development of empirically-grounded intelligence theory to aid the policy process and law enforcement.

1

Introduction

Abstract: This book explores how strategic intelligence can support decision-makers in complex national policing organizations to prevent, detect, disrupt and investigate transnational organized crime (TOC). This chapter contextualizes the research problem, exploring the need for further research into the use of strategic intelligence in a law enforcement context. The chapter presents an overview of the research objectives and provides an insight into the social context of TOC and the current approaches to strategic intelligence in law enforcement. Identifying gaps in the current literature this chapter provides a case for the present study, which encompasses four exploratory case studies across three jurisdictions (Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia), and argues for the need for a strategic intelligence framework for use by Western law enforcement agencies in the same or similar jurisdictions.

Coyne, John and Peter Bell. The Role of Strategic Intelligence in Law Enforcement: Policing Transnational Organized Crime in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137443885.0004.

The central aim of this book is to critically explore how law enforcement’s strategic intelligence capability can support decision-makers in complex national policing organizations. Through the use of case study analysis we discuss the application of strategic intelligence in response to the threat posed by transnational organized crime (TOC) across three jurisdictions: Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia.

Strategic intelligence theory and practice in law enforcement has developed slowly as a result of intelligence-led policing (ILP) methodologies and police cultural resistance. Law enforcement culture is one of hard facts and the preparation of information for presentation in a relevant justice system. Even at the national level law enforcement is an operationally focused activity. The initial implementation of ILP – one of the most widely supported police management methodologies – has subsequently focused on the tactical implementation of intelligence support (see also Ratcliffe, 2008a, b). As a result, most law enforcement intelligence research, as well as organizational and professional intelligence doctrine, has had a sharp tactical focus, centring on information collection, collation and sense-making at the street and case level (see also Maguire, 1999; Treverton, 2002; Maguire and Tim, 2006; Ratcliffe, 2008c; Verfaillie and Beken, 2008; McDowell, 2009; Rogers, 2009).

Since the late 1980s law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have become increasingly aware that their capabilities have been substantially surpassed by the number of criminal acts and their increasing complexity. This issue has been particularly evident with regard to TOC. Organized crime activities and interests have rapidly expanded from being localized, then nationalized, followed by regionalized and finally globalized, making the threat that TOC poses to national and regional security significantly greater. This increased threat has been accompanied by an increase in the complexity of TOC structures and criminal activities (Hill, 2005: pp. 47–49; Jones, 2009). Globally LEAs have experimented with, developed and implemented a range of police management methodologies to move from a reactive to a proactive footing in response to an ever changing criminal environment – especially as it relates to TOC.

The application of strategic intelligence in law enforcement has been viewed by some justice policy professionals and senior police officers as the means by which decision-making on strategy setting and policy, using incomplete or complex data sets, can be made more objective (see also Ratcliffe, 2008a, 2008b). In this context intelligence is used to make ‘sense’ of volumes of information now readily available through open sources via a myriad of (digital) information search engines. This becomes increasingly important in an age where the role of police has morphed from simplistic response and enforcement activity to one of managing human security risks. In this evolving paradigm shift, intelligence can be used to reduce the impact of strategic surprise from evolving criminal threats and environmental change (Sheptycki, 2009).

As highlighted by Johnson (2009), the development of core propositions about intelligence organizations and activities is central to the development of any intelligence theory. These types of propositions provide the dimensions of issues that any future theoretical framework must address. As such, this book outlines propositions and identifies paradoxes in strategic intelligence in responding to TOC within the jurisdictions being examined.

The research culminates in the development of two conceptual frameworks for strategic intelligence in law enforcement. The first addresses the integration of strategic TOC intelligence within a law enforcement organization, while the second seeks to enhance the interface between strategic TOC intelligence, the policy process and strategic decision-making.

Research problem and significance

Within the context of this research, strategic intelligence (the output) is a product which is directed towards supporting executive decision-makers in setting organizational strategies as well as tactical policing operations. Academic research and discourse in the later stages of the 20th and the dawn of the 21st centuries has highlighted that the future of successful law enforcement activities against TOC must be better coordinated and involve holistic strategies (see also Verfaillie and Beken, 2008). The terms ‘prevent’, ‘detect’, ‘disrupt’ and ‘investigate’ in this context relate to the need for strategies to be holistic in nature, drawing on a range of traditional and non-traditional or, perhaps more correctly termed, non-enforcement strategies.

The primary research question which guides this research is ‘How can strategic intelligence better support law enforcement executive decision-makers in preventing, detecting, disrupting and investigating transnational organized crime?’

The book examines the role strategic intelligence plays in anticipating TOC in selected English-speaking Commonwealth countries, namely the UK, Canada and Australia. Through the study of pivotal LEAs such as the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) (more recently referred to as the National Crime Agency or NCA), the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC), the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which are tasked with providing a national strategic intelligence capability within each of the case study jurisdictions, it is anticipated that we can gain a deeper understanding of the strategic intelligence function and, as a result, develop a conceptual framework that will enhance the contribution made by strategic intelligence to the decisions made by law enforcement executives.

Objectives of the research

The research in this book addresses several gaps in the literature, in particular how strategic intelligence can assist law enforcement executives in anticipating TOC. The research is significant because it provides an understanding of the impact of strategic intelligence across the range of strategic responses to TOC and their intersection with police management. It explores the practical application of intelligence models that have been previously examined in a theoretical setting and establishes the value they provide in supporting decision-making. In this context the research identifies the difference between intelligence and police inputs to decision-making.

The research makes its original contribution to the field of intelligence by exploring the effectiveness of strategic intelligence in supporting the prevention, disruption, detection and investigation approaches to TOC. It also provides an original analysis of the relationship between strategic intelligence and strategy.

Contextualization of the research problem

The years of the Cold War could be considered the golden age of the intelligence profession (see also Kahn, 2009). The period was marked by a clear threat, which provided an analytical certainty, allowing for the intelligence profession’s development of detailed warning indicators and long-term predictions (Davis, 2007, 2009). This clarity enabled extensive intelligence collection capabilities to be developed, with large budgets being the norm (Fingar, 2011: pp. 1–2). With this clarity the intelligence profession was able to undertake its activities with almost negligible external criticism or accountabilities. With the end of the Cold War came increased accountability, decreased budgets and an uncertain intelligence landscape where the nature and source of threats had changed (see also Fingar, 2011).

Since the latter half of the 20th century popular media has portrayed intelligence as a clandestine activity involving deception, intrigue and unscrupulous conduct. The intelligence activities of Western governments since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks (referred to as 9/11 from this point forward) have done little to avail these perceptions. The very value of national intelligence has now been called into question given its spectacular failures with regard to predicting 9/11 and the alleged existence of Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (Holland, 2007: pp. 199–219).

Following 9/11 a new age of intelligence has arisen; resourcing has surged, uncertainty has increased and accountability regimes have expanded. The application of intelligence methodologies continues to expand in both the private and public sectors (see also Holland, 2007; Rud, 2009). Even with the numerous recent failings, funding for military and national intelligence in the Western world continued to grow in real terms until the 2008 global economic crisis. Additionally, the concept of business intelligence in the private sector is finding its way into the lexicon of management vocabulary, literature and research (Rud, 2009: pp. 5–19).

Social context of TOC and crime measurement

Reichel and Albanese (2014, pp. 5–8) note the difficulty in identifying TOC within our communities. It could be argued that criminal activity has been largely regarded as a local or regional concern. However, with the emergence of globalization and advances in communication and transportation technologies and services, crimes can be committed across a myriad of jurisdictions, giving rise to the term Glocal Crime. Glocal Crime can include everyday residential burglaries and vehicle thefts; however, they are committed by criminals with either direct or indirect links to transnational criminal networks.

The globalized context that sovereign states operate in has seen the threat posed to national security by non-state actors – including TOC – rapidly expand in size and nature (see also Felsen and Kalaitzidis, 2005: pp. 3–5; Kilcullen, 2009: pp. 5–8). TOC is an issue that has become a focal point for a range of private and public sector stakeholders. TOC is not a new phenomenon, as its origins appear to be at least as old as national governments and international trade (Woodiwiss, 2007: pp. 13–15). It could be argued, however, that what has changed is the way sovereign states perceive the TOC problem and harms (see also Harfield, 2008).

Over the last 20 years sovereign states, international bodies and non-government organizations alike have increasingly described TOC as a threat to national security and regional stability (Woodiwiss, 2007: pp. 13–15). In part this increased awareness has been related to TOC’s increased mobility and capabilities. It is also related to a growing awareness in law enforcement that stereotypical justice responses to TOC are no longer effective as deterrents or enforcement strategies (Joutsen, 2005: pp. 255–260).

The disposition of the threat posed by TOC is difficult to establish given the secretive nature of such crimes, as well as the misunderstandings about its nature (Williams and Godson, 2002). Popular media today, much like that present in the 1950s, continues to conjure up an image of TOC groups as hierarchical ethnic organizations similar to the ‘Corleone Family’ from the Godfather. Much of the original conceptualization of hierarchical crime groups can be traced to the post-World War Two American domestic security focus on ethnic conspiracy theories rather than being grounded in research (Edwards and Gill, 2007: pp. 7–9).

From the early 1990s professional discourse has highlighted that TOC is an unprecedented and complex threat to national security that requires equally complex responses (Verfaillie and Beken, 2008: pp. 534–544). The events of 9/11 highlight the complex decision-making context that governments face in responding to rapidly evolving, non-state threats such as TOC and the important role of strategic intelligence.

TOC resilience to traditional law enforcement responses has resulted in very public calls for a range of new tactics/approaches and strategies to mitigate its impacts (see also Joutsen, 2005: pp. 255–260). Globally LEAs have experimented with, developed and implemented a range of police management methodologies to move from responsive to proactive TOC paradigms (Verfaillie and Beken, 2008: pp. 534–544).

Measuring crime

The collection and analysis of crime data are fundamental to the development of an appropriate law enforcement response and in general crime prevention. An examination of the analytical methodologies used in crime measurement conducted by van Dijk (2008, 2009) and later noted by Reichel and Albanese (2014: p. 51) suggests that ‘victim surveys’ in particular were unhelpful in determining which domestic crimes have a transnational component. For example, a person parks their motor vehicle at a park-n-ride facility at a suburban commuter train station at 6.30 am and catches the train into the city to work. The owner of the vehicle is not expected to retrieve their vehicle until approximately 5.30 pm that evening. The vehicle is subsequently stolen from the park-n-ride facility at approximately 9.00 am and driven to a warehouse adjacent to a marine port. The vehicle is loaded into a container and shipped that afternoon by sea to an overseas destination by a transnational crime group. The car thief is a local offender that is paid in either cash or drugs to steal the vehicle; however, the group facilitating the crime is transnational in scope and activity. In this instance the crime is local but has global implications.

van Dijk (2008, 2009) argues that victim surveys do not collect such detailed information as it would not be known for some time, if at all, by the victim or local police if such a domestic crime could have a transnational component. Alvazzi (2010) and Feingold (2010) further argue that because of the movement across borders the concept of TOC is better conceptualized as a process rather than an event. In fact it may involve several crimes being committed over an extended period of time. It is the pervasive nature of TOC, enabling it to have ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  Transnational Organized Crime1
• 3  Intelligence Studies
• 4  International Case Study 1: Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC)
• 5  International Case Study 2: The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)
• 6  Australian Case Study 1: The Australian Crime Commission (ACC)
• 7  Australian Case Study 2: Australian Federal Police (AFP)
• 8  Conceptual Frameworks for the Integration of Strategic Intelligence
• 9  Conclusion
• References
• Index