The Intelligence Function

Issues in Crime and Justice

CJ 4610 – PA 5315

Professor James J. Drylie

Week 7

Law Enforcement Intelligence

Intelligence-led Policing

• Brief history of LE Intelligence

• Intelligence-led Policing

– The Integration of Community Policing

• Classification, Products, & Dissemination

• Managing the Intelligence Function

A Brief History

• The LE Intelligence Process has been troubling since the very beginning.– Why?

• The practice of maintaining records of citizen activities often involving people who had not committed any crime.

• These practices violate the fundamental constitutional guarantees and offends the American sense of fairness.

• Early intelligence initiatives typically lacked focus.

• Both issues provide lessons learned.

The early years

• Begin in earnest in the 1920s.

• Relied on military practices as guiding points.– The dossier system

• A collection of diverse raw information about people who were thought to be involved with criminals, or persons who were thought to be a threat to the safety of the community.

• By the 1930s the Depression bought focus to other issues and intelligence was relegated to the back burner for a time.

The Ku Klux Klan

• The House Committee on Un-American Activities.

– Martin Dies (D-Tex) a KKK supporter fuled the

fires of concern about Communism in the

United States.

– The Red Scare.

• 1940 – 1950s

– WWII and the concern over the forming of the

Soviet Union

– Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis)

• The use and expansion of dossier-files

– Many people caught up in this were simply exercising their constitutional rights of free speech, assembly, and addressing grievances.

• 1960s

– Civil Rights Era

• The use of dossiers increased significantly.

– An old tool that proved effective.

» Effective for what?

Early recommendations

• The primary use of intelligence in the early- to mid-twentieth century was in the area of national security

• Threats were perceived as both

– Internal

• Sympathizers

– External

• Fascism

• Communism

• By the end of WWII the major focus was on the Soviet Union.

• Even with the advent of the Intelligence Community in 1947 there were problems associated with

– Structure

– Organization

– Coordination

• A series of federal commissions, beginning in 1948 with the Hoover Commission, made relevant recommendations for improvement.

• Dulles Report – 1949

– Recommended that the CIA provide greater

coordination for the IC, including the FBI.

• Schlesinger Report – 1971

– Recommended a reorganization of the IC

• There were identified failures in

– Coordination

– Leadership

• Church Committee – 1971

– Both the CIA and FBI conducted operations

that violated constitutional rights.

• COINTELPRO

LOCAL Law Enforcement

• Warren Commission – 1964– The commission that investigated the

Kennedy Assassination recommended that federal agencies, notably the Secret Service and the FBI, needed to work more closely with local law enforcement.

• A call for increased information sharing.

• Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice – 1967 – Every major city police agency should have

an Intel Unit to focus solely on gathering and processing information on organized crime.

• National Advisory Commission on CJ Standards and Goals – 1971 recommended the following– Establishing the Intel Function

• Each state should develop a centralized operation

• Establish regional networks with contiguous states

• Each local LEA should have an intel function

– Intel Function Operations • State & local LEAs support the federal agencies

• Develop operational policies & procedures

• Designated Intel Officer reporting to CLEO

• Develop policies for screening, securing, disseminate intel-related information

Lessons Learned

• History has shown us that

– The dossier-system provides little insight

• Analysis of the information is necessary

– Improper collection of information has a

“chilling effect” on the community

– To be effective, Intel Units must be proactive

– There needs to be a clear distinction between

• National security intelligence

• Law enforcement intelligence

– Targeting people is unlawful without evidence

of some criminal predicate

• Retaining information in intel files is improper unless there is sustainable evidence of criminal involvement.

• A full-time LE intel function should be organized professionally and staffed with personnel trained in analysis and intelpreparation.

• Must be clear lines of communication between intel units and decision makers.

• Regular evaluation of units and function.

• Information sharing is a priority.

Intelligence-Led Policing

• Community policing has established a natural foundation for Intelligence-led policing.

– CP develops skills in police officers that

directly supports new CT responsibilities.

• Scientific approach to problem solving

• Environmental scanning

• Effective communication with public

• Fear reduction

• Community mobilization to deal with problems

• The positive nature of COP/citizen relationships promote a continuous and reliable transfer of information.

• The Office of Domestic Preparedness describes the role of CP in the intelprocess

– Provides information to CP contacts

– Facilitates exchange of information

– Ensures community awareness

– Encourages prevention, proactive policing,

and close working relationships.

Shared practices

• Information management – CP - information gained helps define

parameters of problems

– ILP – information input is an essential ingredient

• Two-way communication– CP – information is sought from public

– ILP – public provides valuable information

• Data analysis– CP – crime analysis

– ILP – analysis is critical to threat management

• Problem solving

– CP – used to reconcile community conditions

– ILP – same process reconciles factors related

to vulnerability.

• Both CP & ILP require an investment by the organization and the community

– At all levels

– And involving all components

The COPMSTAT Comparison

Analysis of

enterprise

Analysis of

offender

Drives operations

JTTF, OC, TFs

Bottom-up operational needs

Drives operations

Patrol, Tactical, CI

Commodity flowInputCrime mapping

Threat drivenOrg. flexibility Incident driven

MultijurisdictionalPreventionSingle jurisdiction

ILPCommonalityCOMPSTAT

Four Broad Questions

• Who poses a threat?

• Who is doing what with whom?

• What is the MO of those who poses the threat?

• What is needed to catch offenders and prevent incidents or trends?

Illicit Commodities

• Important for police officers to understand and appreciate how commodities flow in criminal and terrorist enterprises.

– Criminals exist to earn illegal profits through

the trafficking of illegal commodities

– Terrorists also rely on and use similar tactics.

• Human nature is generally consistent regardless of the enterprise

– Understanding commodity flows in a general

sense allows for recognition under a variety of

circumstances.

Public education

• A critical element of ILP

• Community education programs should have specific outcomes.

– Whether it is to reduce fear or enlist

volunteers there are four general factors that

are incorporated:

• Know what to observe

• Know what is suspicious

• Known what to report

• Know how to report

– From this we know what happens next

See page 49

Civil Rights

• Regardless of circumstances, law enforcement intelligence should be approached with a solid base that protects citizen’s civil rights.

Classification

• Necessary to understand and differentiate between the different types of law enforcement intelligence.

– Intel based on the nature of analysis

– Intel products

– Operational intel

– Intel based on orientation of analysis

– Dissemination

The Nature of Analysis

• Two terms generally used

– Raw intelligence

• Information obtained from a reliable source, not

necessarily corroborated

• Usually time sensitive

– Finished intelligence

• Fully analyzed raw intelligence

• Corroborated

• Finished intel becomes the product of the process

of analysis

Intelligence Products

• When intelligence reaches the finished state it must be presented in report form

• The report should– Identify the targeted consumer of the

information• Patrol

• CID

– Convey critical information

– Identify time parameters

– Provide for follow-up

Operational Intelligence

• Law enforcement agencies may at times need to maintain information that is raw or finished that places the agency in a controversial position.

• Information on persons/groups may be retained for two reasons:

– The potential to commit crime

– Pose a bona fide threat

• The difficult balance is to ensure that there is no constitutional violation.

Orientation of the Analysis

• SLTLE intelligence is typically described as:

– Tactical

• Used in the development of a criminal case involving

– A continuing criminal enterprise

– Multijurisdictional crime

– Strategic

• Examines crime patterns and trends to assist in

decision making

• Similar to crime analysis, but focuses more so on specific crime types

Dissemination

• This is the heart of information sharing.

• Prior to dissemination there must be policies in place on what and to whom information is to be shared.

– The right to know

– The need to know

• The Third Agency Rule

– A prohibition of sharing intelligence outside of

the agency is prohibited.

– Affords control over the information.