Limiting intelligence: the codification of police intelligence

© 2000 Dr. Mary Sandow-QuirkThis thesis examines the extent to which the elements comprising the workings of police intelligence can be codified. In order to improve the quality of intelligence processes and products and to enhance the accountability and credibility of intelligence units, police forces in several countries have resorted to increased codification of these processes by means of more formal training programs, by the development of manuals of procedures, and by various applications of information technology. It is argued here that the failure by police to understand both the nature of the raw material with which they are dealing, that is, information, and the tacit dimensions of their own intelligence processes, has resulted in serious and continuing failures of intelligence. An information perspective is applied, therefore, to the problems of codifying intelligence. The argument is illustrated by examples taken from the recent history of the Victoria Police Force, but the conclusions drawn are also relevant to other organisations which have not yet come to terms with the tacit elements in intelligence work. The thesis demonstrates the ways in which organisational structure influences intelligence gathering, analysis and dissemination. Practical illustrations are found in an examination of the structures of Victoria Police intelligence which are shown to be both a consequence of earlier intelligence disasters and an attempted codification of police intelligence. The unrecognized tacit elements implicit in the concept of an Intelligence Cycle, a common representation of intelligence work, are also examined. These elements affect the use and content of police information sources, the analytical operations of police intelligence, and the context of and constraints within which intelligence products are disseminated. The thesis examines the reasons for and the methods of codification in Victorian police intelligence and concludes that as long as the tacit components of intelligence go unrecognized, the current drive towards greater professionalism and increased codification will have only limited success