Forward to the past: reinventing intelligence-led policing in Britain

Abstract

Drawing on archival, secondary material and primary research, this paper examines ‘Total Policing’, the strategy recently adopted by London’s Metropolitan Police. It situates that analysis within a critical examination of other innovative policing strategies previously employed in Britain. It argues that the prospects for Total Policing depend upon the resolution of long-standing problems such as: the inadequacy and inefficiency of local intelligence work; the paucity of evidence for the success of commanders’ previous efforts to harness together the component parts of their forces in pursuit of a single mission; and, above all, a seeming inability to learn the lessons of the past.

Keywords:

• total policing
• intelligence-led policing
• unit beat policing
• organisational memory

Notes

1. The archival data were collected from Britain’s National Archive or from the National Police Library, Bramshill, Hampshire. The Bramshill data were primary research studies carried out between 1967 and 1969 across England by officers participating in the Bramshill ‘Special Course’ – a programme for future police leaders. To the best of my knowledge, none of that data previously has been the subject of scholarly research.

2. Primary data were collected in the course of my doctoral research into ILP models introduced into British policing in the modern era. My data included interviews with chief officers, Home Office officials, senior police officers and staff. I carried out ethnographic research in two police divisions. See James (2012).

3. The riots began in North London following the police shooting of a suspect. They also triggered the outbreak of ‘copycat’ disturbances in several British cities.

4. Assistant Commissioner John Yates retired during the course of a police investigation into phone hacking by private investigators hired by News International, the proprietors of the now defunct News of the World newspaper. Commissioner Paul Stephenson stood down following an investigation into the employment of a former News International executive as a Metropolitan Police press adviser. Both were later cleared of any wrongdoing.

5. Operation Trident is a long established specialist detective force that hitherto has been responsible for investigating murder and gun crime in London’s black communities. It has now been redesignated as the ‘Gang Command’.

6. Big Wing was a controversial strategy employed by RAF Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain. It involved large formations of fighter aircraft deployed in mass sweeps against the Luftwaffe over the English Channel and northern Europe. Its critics claimed that this meant that the fighters were not always available when needed and targets became more vulnerable to bombing attacks. The full significance of the phrase in the policing context is unclear but there is an obvious parallel in the deployment of large numbers of officers to carry out coordinated strikes. Of course, the same criticism that was levelled at RAF commanders could also apply to the police; Big Wing operations that take officers and staff away from their ordinary duties could mean that neighbourhoods may equally be as vulnerable and unprotected.

7. The Home Office is the UK’s lead government department for immigration and passports, drugs policy, crime, counter-terrorism and police.

8. The Police Federation is the police staff association. It represents officers up to the rank of chief inspector and operates like a trade union but without the freedom to strike or otherwise withdraw officers’ labour.

9. Regional Crime Squads were introduced in 1964 to combat cross-border offending. They were later amalgamated into the National Crime Squad and later still that was subsumed into Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency.

10. The Soham murders – in 2002, two 10-year-old girls were murdered by school caretaker, Ian Huntley in Soham, Cambridgeshire. It subsequently transpired that the police in the north of England held intelligence that would have prevented Huntley from taking up employment at a school. However, that had not been shared with the Cambridgeshire force.