Risky Intelligence

Abstract

The article concerns the use by police services of the abstract idea of intelligence-led policing, often embodied as it is in the United Kingdom in the National Intelligence Model. We will argue that while this is a central framing idea in policing, it contains omissions which lead to faulty decision-making. The article charts the rise of intelligence-led policing in the United Kingdom and argues that circumstances have led to the concept of intelligence becoming equated to ‘information which leads to a detection’; however, that this construction leads to the exclusion of intelligence which then impacts upon the business of the police service. One outcome of this is that the members of the community that the police service is charged with protecting and serving pay the price of this decision-making. The central argument of our article is that an overconcentration on the detection of offences has skewed the way the map has been drawn up and how it is currently being used. Our main contention is not that the concept of intelligence-led policing should be abandoned, but that it should be revisited and revised to take greater notice of the changes in the landscape it is designed to cover. The territory is changing but the map is not being amended; it is time for some major revisions.