The Implementation of Intelligence-Led Policing in Mississippi

The attacks of 9/11 had a huge impact on the intelligence community, the federal government, state and local police departments, and every American citizen. For many law enforcement agencies, their daily operations have been greatly affected. The terrorist attacks made them realize that their estrangement from one another had to be eliminated in an effort to prevent future attacks. If agencies were to be successful they needed to better communicate, share information, assist each other, and become familiar with new policies and procedures. Those new procedures included the implementation of intelligence-led policing (ILP) - a proactive approach to crime prevention. The principle document of this new concept in the United States is the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan (NCISP) which contains twenty-eight recommendations, each of which suggests ways to properly implement ILP in state and local police departments. These recommendations include increased communication between agencies of all levels, additional training and funding for agencies, and enhanced information sharing. However, debate remains as to whether ILP is part of a police officer\u27s routine and if the recommendations from the NCISP are being followed. To date, there have been few systematic studies that have explored these exact questions. With new and emerging threats to the United States, it is important that all levels of law enforcement work together to fight terrorism. In order to determine if ILP is being implemented in agencies in Mississippi, an anonymous survey was fielded to every state and local law enforcement agency in the state. Voluntary participants answered the survey in hard copy or online; a response rate of 47% was realized. In order to compare Mississippi to the rest of the United States, a survey was also fielded to the participants at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Data regarding the implementation of ILP were subjected to statistical analysis to determine the extent to which ILP has been implemented in Mississippi, how Mississippi compares to the rest of the United States, and what independent variables (agency size and agency type) affect the implementation of ILP