Ever since the 1800s, police reformers have proffered models to organize law enforcement agencies and how those agencies carry out their responsibilities. In 1829, Sir Robert Peel established a paid, professional, public police in London, utilizing a military model, instituting a crime prevention mission, and bringing basic organization and discipline to the London Metropolitan police. Almost 100 years later, August Vollmer improved policing by hiring college educated officers. Providing advanced training, and using radio communication in the Berkeley, California Police Department. Following Vollmer, O.W. Wilson promoted his professional model of policing, which emphasized management principles of effectiveness, efficiency and economy, and which included planning, a centralized command, and the application of technology. Since the 1980s, management principles have been adapted to the new eras of community policing and the information age.
Ratcliffe (2008) uses the foundation of these earlier management philosophies to introduce the reader to “Intelligence‐led Policing” (ILP) in his book of the same name published in early 2008. The book aims to “[…] bring the concepts and processes of intelligence‐led policing into better focus” (p. xiii). Ratcliffe offers ILP as a way of re‐focusing the police department's mission toward a broader concept of crime prevention rather than the more standard reactive way most police agencies respond to crime in their communities. He then compares how both the US and UK organize their police agencies. Whereas the UK has one main police agency, the Home Office, with 52 regional units, the USA police are made up of thousands of independent agencies at different levels of government.
The book is reflective of Ratcliffe's experience of living and teaching in both countries. He brings a well‐informed view of policing environments in both the USA and the UK, his own experience as a police officer, and years of teaching, research, and presenting the concepts of ILP.
After setting the stage using previous developed theories and organizational concepts, Ratcliffe ventures a definition of ILP as follows:
Intelligence‐led policing is thus a business model for policing that sees crime intelligence as a combination of what is more commonly known separately as crime analysis and criminal intelligence, and it works in an information management framework that allows analysts to influence decision‐makers, and where a range of enforcement and longer‐term, problem‐solving prevention solutions are drawn from an evidence base that suggests their likely effectiveness (p. 89).
ILP is not so much a strategy, but a “[…] business model and information‐management process that allows police commanders to understand crime problems in a more strategic manner, and thus make more informed decisions to combat criminality” (p. 188).
Ratcliffe spends the remaining chapters of his book discussing just how this model would function in the real world by defining the ILP analytical framework, interpreting the criminal environment, noting its influence on decision‐makers, clarifying ILP's impact on crime, evaluating police work under the ILP concept, and looking at the future of ILP in a globally challenging world.
The “3‐I” (interpret, influence, impact) model discussed in Chapter 5 is a model of the links between the criminal environment, crime intelligence analysis, and the police decision‐maker, and is used to further illustrate Ratcliffe's concepts. In the model, the analyst's role is as an active participant in pursuit of information that will help decision‐makers. The analyst must pull information from officers, community members, and data. The analyst should “[…] interview investigating officers and [debrief] handlers of confidential informants” (p. 110). By properly interpreting the criminal environment, the analyst is then able to influence the decision‐makers to apply resources correctly to the problem.
The analyst must be able to ferret out who the decision‐makers are and be able to influence their choices regarding the application of appropriate crime prevention programs. Ratcliffe chooses to define the concept of impact as the general result of the first two “i's.” He chooses the “3‐i” model over other approaches because he believes it deals better with the “big‐picture environment of the law enforcement world” (p. 112).
Readers are re‐introduced to the concept of the crime funnel. Ratcliffe proposes that if more of the crime that is actually committed gets reported, it would increase the number of repeat offenders who are eventually jailed. He says, “[t]he hope with intelligence‐led policing therefore rides on the possibility that any increase in the custodial sentence rate manages to target the 6 per cent that cause about 60 per cent of the crime” (p. 166). He then acknowledges how this increase would impact an already financially and staff strapped criminal justice system, at least in the USA. Second, he questions whether the “[…] increased detections will target the right offenders” (p. 167). Ratcliffe argues that if police personnel are more focused on crime prevention through the use of ILP, there will be a reduction in the actual crimes committed leading to an overall reduction of work and resources at various stages of the criminal justice system. With fewer arrests needed in the future, police agencies could afford to target members of the 6 percent of criminals that cause 60 percent of the crime.
Ratcliffe also argues that an “[…] over‐reliance on the [criminal justice] system to resolve general crime issues is a recipe for failure” (p.172). He says that while crime reduction is the most pragmatic strategy, crime disruption works in the shorter term, and crime prevention is the answer to crime resulting in long‐term benefits. ILP allows for access to all three strategies.
Even though ILP can help to reduce and prevent crime, few police managers and executives have received adequate training in major crime prevention methodology or research about what programs work and do not work. Ratcliffe highlights the issue of the lack of available training programs for managers and executives. A change that may bring about a needed result would then involve how internal agency leaders are selected, including potential leaders' pre‐existing level of knowledge held about crime prevention topics. Police leaders are not necessarily effective leaders just because they have been around a number of years.
Ratcliffe acknowledges the difficulty the analysts can experience in plying their trade. He cites these difficulties as being related to the fact that the majority of analysts are female, better educated, and younger than their contemporaries in the usual paramilitary police organization. He says that it is this very organizational structure that makes for the difficulty when the civilian analyst tries to make recommendations, especially when they were not first asked for the input.
In Chapter 9 Ratcliffe discusses evaluations in general terms, and why they should be undertaken. He uses the experience of “Operation Anchorage” to highlight fundamental difference between the use of intelligence and the use of investigation to thwart crime. He proffers that with intelligence the aim is to prevent crime, whereas investigation seeks to find and prosecute offenders. Ratcliffe admits that the way police currently think is more akin to the investigation mind‐set. It will take time and perseverance to bring about a change in mind‐set, focus, effectiveness, and to use new measurements to evaluate success.
One area not encountered in Intelligence‐led Policing is a discussion about the police culture. Research suggests a change in the police culture is necessary to facilitate the success of this or any other management philosophy. The fact that many crime analysts are civilian far outweighs the issues of them being female or young or well educated. It is the paramilitary tradition, the history, and embedded lore of over two centuries worth of policing that will have to be put into a new context before police officers can change their perspective on how policing should be done to meet new twenty‐first century challenges.
Ratcliffe is not unaware of challenges facing ILP. The last chapter discusses the issues of covert activity and its inherent risks, the issue of privacy and risking public fear of the intelligent gathering function should private information be used inappropriately, and the widening security agenda. This is a book for every police administrator and employee to gain a better understanding of how correctly used intelligence can fundamentally redirect how policing operates, and will continue to change.
