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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 12:01 pm
Time: 12:01 pm
Results for criminal intelligence (u.s.)
1 results foundAuthor: Carter, David Title: Understanding Law Enforcement Intelligence Processes Summary: The September 11th attacks impacted society generally, and law enforcement specifically, in dramatic ways. One of the major trends has been changing expectations regarding criminal intelligence practices among state, local, and tribal (SLT) law enforcement agencies, and the need to coordinate intelligence efforts and share information at all levels of government. Despite clear evidence of significant changes, very little research exists that examines issues related to the intelligence practices of SLT law enforcement agencies. Important questions on the nature of the issues that impact SLT intelligence practices remain. While there is some uncertainty among SLT law enforcement about current terrorism threats, there is certainty that these threats evolve in a largely unpredictable pattern. As a result there is an ongoing need for consistent and effective information collection, analysis and sharing. Little information is known about perceptions of how information is being shared between agencies and whether technologies have improved or hurt information sharing, and little is known about whether agencies think they are currently prepared for a terrorist attack, and the key factors distinguishing those that think they are compared to those who do not. This study was designed to address these issues, and a better understanding of these issues could significantly enhance intelligence practices and enhance public safety. To develop a better understanding of perceptions about terrorist threats that SLT agencies face and their efforts to prevent terrorism, the research team distributed questionnaires via a web-designed survey to two separate groups of law enforcement personnel. Development of the survey involved several preliminary drafts. Feedback was sought from SLT intelligence workers about question content and coverage, and specifically whether questions were ambiguous or difficult to answer. After making revisions, the final Institutional Review Board approved instrument had 48 structured, semi-structured, or open-ended questions. The survey, despite its length, enabled respondents to share information about issues such as perceptions of terrorist threats, inter-agency interactions, information sharing, intelligence training, and agency preparedness. Additional questions asked about characteristics of the respondent and the respondent's agency. There are three findings that are quite interesting. First, law enforcement perceptions about what is a serious threat in their community has changed significantly over time. Law enforcement is much more concerned about sovereign citizens, Islamic extremists, and militia/patriot group members compared to the fringe groups of the far right, including Christian Identity believers, reconstructed traditionalists (i.e., Odinists), idiosyncratic sectarians (i.e., survivalists), and members of doomsday cults. In fact, sovereign citizens were the top concern of law enforcement, but the concern about whether most groups were a serious terrorist threat actually declined for most groups (e.g., the KKK; Christian Identity; Neo-Nazis; Racist Skinheads; Extremist Environmentalists; Extreme Animal Rights Extremists). Second, when examining whether the respondents thought that various agencies and sources were useful in their counterterrorism efforts, the agencies that appear to be most useful to SLT law enforcement include state/local fusion centers, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force(s), the FBI, and DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Overall, the internet and the use of open source materials, human intelligence sources, and the media were perceived as providing the most useful information. Security clearances, adequate personnel, adequate training, adequate resources, adequate time, or the organizational culture were all perceived as barriers for the sharing of intelligence and information across agencies. Third, several factors impacted whether an agency was prepared for a terrorist attack. Agencies with satisfied working relationships with state organizations were twice as likely to be prepared, agencies that produce threat assessments and risk assessments more frequently are three-and-a-half times more likely to be prepared than agencies who create them less frequently, and the creation of vulnerability assessments also appears to be a predictor of preparedness as they more than quadruple an agency's preparedness likelihood. In addition, as agencies experience problems related to personnel, training, and resources, the likelihood they will consider themselves prepared is reduced by approximately three-fold. Agencies that felt they were not prepared highlighted problems with resources, training, and quality of working relationships with other organizations. Particularly for practitioners, the most important aspect of this research may not be the findings on the variable analyses, per se, but on the benchmarks identified in trends found in the data. Some clear trends emerged which indicate programmatic successes for information sharing and intelligence, as well as areas where problems remain. When considering these findings in the context of research on organizational development, it is clear that organizational leadership is an important factor for organizational successes in information sharing as well as for preparedness. If the leadership of a law enforcement agency is willing to expend the effort to train personnel, develop partnerships, and participate in state, regional and national information sharing initiatives, then greater levels of success will be achieved. While one would intuitively assume this, the data empirically supports it. Details: College Park, MD: START, 2014. 19p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 9, 2014 at: http://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_UnderstandingLawEnforcementIntelligenceProcesses_July2014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_UnderstandingLawEnforcementIntelligenceProcesses_July2014.pdf Shelf Number: 133952 Keywords: Criminal Intelligence (U.S.)Extremist GroupsIntelligence GatheringIntelligence-Led PolicingLaw EnforcementTerrorism |