Examining Intelligence-Led Policing

Foreword from Professor Emeritus Robert Reiner, London School of Economics, UK. This book provides a critical examination of intelligence-led policing strategies, including an investigation of innovative strategies such as Problem Oriented Policing (POP), problem-solving, and community policing, and in-depth analyses of the Kent Policing Model, which became the template for ILP models across the world, and the UK's National Intelligence Model (NIM). Intelligence-led policing (ILP) approaches have proved particularly attractive to senior police officers and policymakers because they promise to deliver more efficient and effective solutions to the problems of crime than traditional policing practices. However, this book shows that these approaches have delivered far less than their supporters would have us to believe. In part, this has been because of what James terms as 'police orthodoxy'. However, this cannot wholly explain the relative failure of ILP in Britain and elsewhere in the developed world. Drawing on a range of material including extensive interviews with key NIM figures including ACPO members, senior police managers, intelligence workers, police detectives and staff, James questions to what extent British policing can truly be said to be intelligence-led, and whether there is a popular mandate for an alternative to traditional Peelian practice, where police aim simply to deliver intelligent rather than intelligence-led policing. The book provides important insights into the debate on intelligence-led policing and the mechanics and politics of policy development. As such it will be of great value within the policing sphere and more broadly for public policy studies.