Problem-Oriented policing model and Intelligence-Led policing model

The first police force was created in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel; he created 17 metropolitan police divisions in London. By 1856 the rest of the country was required to establish a police force. Since then, many different models of policing have been developed and experimented with, developments in policing and crime control were fairly rapid during the 1990s, this is due to many reasons such as; changing patterns of crime, changing demands on the police, and changing expectations of the police and their role in communities.

The two models of policing that will be outlined and discussed in this essay are the Problem-Oriented policing model and the Intelligence-Led policing model. They each differ from one another substantially and across a range of dimensions, they differ in means and ends, methods and priorities, techniques and successes. However, they do also share some common features in their methods despite differing in the reasons for doing so.

The Intelligence-Led policing model is home grown from the United Kingdom, it draws upon the notion that the police can and do know a great deal about offending patterns. It addresses the supposed failure of the police to address the systemic sources of crime and patterns within crime. The main thought is that the police and should actively pursue information about criminals and their organisation (Tilley 2003). The Audit Commission (1993) prescribed a proactive approach, targeting the criminal not the crime and making more use of intelligence. Carrying out this proactive approach involves effectively sourcing, assembling and analysing intelligence about criminals and their activities to disrupt their offending. Done so by targeting enforcement and patrol where the activity is the most common (Tilley 2003). The core emphases of the Intelligence-Led policing model are; the focus on crime alone, the means used are enforcement and the disruption of criminal groups; these measures are aimed at reducing the problem by undermining the ability of criminals to do their business. These activities are informed by the intelligence gained from the analysts about understanding the business of the criminals; all organisations involved are enforcement agencies in order to successfully aid the focus of this method. It is enforcing the practical business of policing more smartly, using information technology and modern methods (Tilley 2003).

The Problem-Oriented policing model however, is more of a global movement with American origins. It embraces an analytic approach which takes community concerns seriously whilst developing strategic responses that aim to deal effectively with issues underlying police-relevant community problems, the origins of this method lie within the work of Goldstein (1979). It incorporates an explicit conception of the nature and role of modern policing, with officer imagination, local discretion and community resources being used where it is relevant to do so (Tilley 2003). The Problem-Oriented policing model also stresses substance and effectiveness over process and style, it is pre-dominantly evidence based. Goldstein outlines several purposes of this method of policing, they are; to prevent and control conduct which threatens life and property, to aid victims and protect those in danger of physical harm, to protect constitutional guarantees, to facilitate the movement of people and vehicles, to assist those who cannot care for themselves, to resolve conflict between individuals, groups or citizens and their government, to identify problems which may escalate for individuals, the police or even the government and to create and maintain a feeling of security in the community (Goldstein 1977, described in Scott 2000). The aim is to achieve these said purposes by systematically addressing relevant problems in the community; the identified problems should then be thoroughly researched and understood. Relevant responses should be identified and targeted on the basis of this analysis (Tilley 2003).

Already it is clear that there are differences in the focus points of both models; however a common factor between these models is the use of analysis, intelligence and computers. Both the Intelligence-Led policing model and the Problem-Oriented policing model use these new methods due to the issue that criminality is becoming more sophisticated and mobile, the identification of patterns is beyond the capability of localised, informal methods of identification (NCIS 2000). Therefore, up to date intelligence allows for speedy well targeted interventions in an ever-changing society of criminals and varying criminal organisation (Tilley 2003). Computers are used as they enable better management of the flow of information that the police receive about criminals, their behaviour and organisation (Tilley 2003). Through this, smarter action can be taken to control them through deterrence, disruption, arrest or incarceration, as the information is organised and easy to access; it is easier and quicker to create an operation to take down criminals. The improved quality of the analysis is due to the improved quality of the intelligence systems. Both of the models of policing heavily rely on analysing data. Analysis converts raw information into actionable intelligence by seeking patterns in crime data, seeing the similarities in criminal events and constructing profiles (Cope 2004). It offers a synthesis of data about crime that is developed out of context (Peterson 1990) and also provides the opportunity to rationalise policing (Manning 2001). The two models of policing require specialist analysts, these analysts make much more systematic use of information and often call for information collection as well as use of information already at hand (Tilley 2003).

Although both policing methods use analysis, the information which they seek is different. The analysis method has sound foundations within the principles of Problem-Oriented policing (Goldstein 1979). The focus on information collection is on problematic patterns of behaviour that produce police-relevant problems for the community and on plausible points of intervention to reduce them, remove them or prevent the harm cause by them (Clarke and Eck 2003). The analysis tends to focus on enduring problems that are not responsive to standard forms of policing, therefore its focus spans relatively long periods and relatively wide spaces so that there is much more data readily available from records (Tilley 2003). It calls for the close specification of problems and the problem along with its analysis comes first.

Analysis is also integral to the theory of the Intelligence-Led policing model. It is on a ‘need to know’ security principle (NCIS 2000). The process of this model exemplifies concerns with identifying, prioritizing and intervening to minimise risk. Intelligence can be understood as information developed to direct police action (Cope 2004). The Intelligence-Led policing model is fed by intelligence products, of which there are four types; firstly strategic assessments, these provide a longer term picture of trends possibly with forecasts for the future, secondly tactical assessments, these are short term and are aligned to the tactical menu, thirdly target profiles, these profiles describe the offenders and their associates to inform operations against them and lastly problem profiles, these profiles identify emerging series of offenders or hotspots for crime (Cope 2004) all the information which is put forward in these products is actively sought. The focus of information collection and analysis in the Intelligence-Led policing model is on offenders and their networking patterns, and to inform smart enforcement focused on serious and prolific offending patterns. It tends to naturally focus on current or very recent offending patterns. The intelligence used is often gained from informants and is done so covertly, whereas the Problem-Oriented policing model rarely needs or uses covertly collected information and information from informants. The Intelligence-Led policing model leaves little if any space for analysis of none-crime problems, the major information task is thus finding and drawing together ways of tracking offender and offending patterns as they emerge, and disrupting them through targeted enforcement (Tilley 2003). Crime analysis is crucial for this method of policing to work effectively because it endeavours to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time (Fletcher 2000).

The Intelligence-Led policing model and the Problem-Oriented policing model both note the association between repeat victimisation and prolific offending. For the Problem-Oriented policing model repeat victimisation comprises a major pattern of problem events requiring systematic attention (Pease 1998). Repeat offenders appear to be largely responsible for repeat offences (Everson and Pease 2001). Therefore focusing proactive enforcement efforts on those already victimised is an efficient way of targeting prolific offenders. This falls in line with the Intelligence-Led policing model which steers attention towards this. However, the Problem-Oriented policing model is also concerned with non-enforcement methods of reducing the vulnerability of those already victimised (Tilley 2003).

The way in which the models of policing are enforced differs on a much larger scale. The Problem-Oriented policing model is carried out by crime prevention officers and crime pattern analysts. It implies attention to problems exploiting available pinch-points in the conditions generating problems (Tilley 2002). This may include targeting prolific offenders, criminal organisations, those recruiting new criminals or stolen goods markets, any or all of which are likely to be focused on in the Intelligence-Led policing model. However, the major difference is that the Problem-Oriented policing model is also interested in finding pinch-points that do require enforcement. These will often include reductions in opportunity of the sort stressed in situational crime prevention (Braga 2002). Situational crime prevention reduces the criminals opportunities to commit crime for example making changes in the environment to make the criminal believe that the crime is not worth committing as it is too risky, this is something which the Problem-Oriented policing model endorses in its methods of policing via the problem analysis triangle, this consists of; the offender or source of complaint, a victim or victims and a location or characteristics of locations (Cohen and Felson 1979). Problems can be removed or ameliorated by altering one or more of the three problem features with the aid of situational crime prevention

Crackdown and consolidation strategies are plausible candidates for many problems addressed in the Problem-Oriented Policing model (Wright 1994). The crackdown side agrees with the Intelligence-Led policing model, for both it involves efforts to target intensive, well publicised enforcement to incapacitate and/or deter offenders creating problems, this can also have beneficial side-effect beyond the operation of the crackdown (Sherman 1990). The Problem-Oriented policing model however will be equally concerned with consolidation, the introduction of measures to produce sustained falls in crime during the lull created by the crackdown (Tilley 2003).

In addition to this, the Problem-Oriented policing model embraces concerns that extend beyond law enforcement. It is relevant to all police-relevant problems. Smart enforcement is needed for some but not all issues that are addressed by the police, for example a child going missing from home is more of a problem for policing but not smart enforcement. Various long-term crime problems are more open to non-enforcement preventive interventions than they are smart enforcement. Few enduring crime or non-crime problems are effectively dealt with by enforcement alone (Tilley 2003). This leads to the Problem-Oriented policing model to be seen as more community friendly as it does not ignore their needs; it focuses on all problems in society.

On the other hand, the Intelligence-Led policing model is carried out mainly by intelligence officers and Criminal Investigation Departments (CID). It is the outcome of a desire to professionalise the intelligence discipline within the law enforcement (NCIS 2000). Enforcement can be made smarter by assiduously assembling analysing and acting upon information relating to the activities and organisation of major offenders (Tilley 2003). The Intelligence-Led policing model works at three interconnecting levels; level one covers local issues and volume crime, level two covers cross border issues, where crime issues cross jurisdictional borders and where intelligence needs to be shared, and level three covers serious and organised crime operating on a national or international scale (Tilley 2003). Although it does not cover issues which do not require smart enforcement like the Problem-Oriented policing model does, it covers issues which spread overseas and could be considered a more professional business type method of policing.

Within the Intelligence-Led policing model there is a tasking and co-ordination group which is central to this method. The group has meetings which set the agenda for intelligence gathering, receiving intelligence, making tactical assessments, allocating law enforcement effort and reviewing said efforts, all of which are crucial elements of this model of policing. The meetings are made up of four main elements; the first being targeting offenders, the second is the management of hotspots, the third is the investigation of offences and the fourth is the application of preventative measures such as CCTV (NCIS 2000). The fourth element to this sits well with Problem-Oriented policing as it is essentially a form of situational crime prevention, something which the Problem-Oriented policing model embraces in its method of policing.

It is easy to see that the Intelligence-Led policing model is concerned with traditional police priorities; the detection of crime and the apprehension of serious and prolific offenders (Tilley 2003). Crime is deemed better controllable by better targeting of offenders; therefore the public is better served. The assumption stands that law enforcement is the key function of the police; it shapes what they are concerned with and what they can do.

The two models being discussed both have considerable success in society, however what each model considers to be success proves the real focus point that the model entails. For the Problem-Oriented policing model, success is achieved with the successful amelioration, removal or management of specific police related community problems. For the Intelligence-Led policing model success comes with good arrests and good sentences, the conviction of major, prolific offenders and their severe punishment keeping them away from those they would otherwise have the opportunity to harm (Tilley 2003).

Although the Intelligence-Led policing model comes to play better with traditional grass roots police officers than the other models, it provides no space for the wider conception of police problems and responsibilities which the Problem-Oriented policing model takes on board such as community issues. The Problem-Oriented policing model provides essential space for community models of policing and Intelligent-Led enforcement, which makes it crucially adaptable to changing conditions in society (Tilley 2003).

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Emile Durkheim - Individual and Society

To Durkheim, men were creatures whose desires were unlimited. Unlike other animals, they are not satiated when their biological needs are fulfilled. "The more one has, the more one wants, since satisfactions received only stimulate instead of filling needs." It follows from this natural insatiability of the human animal that his desires can only be held in check by external controls, that is, by societal control. Society imposes limits on human desires and constitutes "a regulative force [which] must play the same role for moral needs which the organism plays for physical needs." In well-regulated societies, social controls set limits on individual propensities so that "each in his sphere vaguely realizes the extreme limits on individual propensities so that "each in his sphere vaguely realizes the extreme limits set to his ambitions and aspires to nothing beyond. . . . Thus, an end or a goal [is] set to the passions."

When social regulations break down, the controlling influence of society on individual propensities is no longer effective and individuals are left to their own devices. Such a state of affairs Durkheim calls anomie, a tern that refers to a condition of relative normlessness in a whole society or in some of its component groups. Anomie does not refer to a state of mind, but to a property of the social structure. It characterizes a condition in which individual desires are no longer regulated by common norms and where, as a consequence, individuals are left without moral guidance in the pursuit of their goals.

Although complete anomie, or total normlessness, is empirically impossible, societies may be characterized by greater or lesser degrees of normative regulations. Moreover, within any particular society, groups may differ in the degree of anomie that besets them. Social change may create anomie either in the whole society or in some parts of it. Business crises, for example, may have a far greater impact on those on the higher reaches of the social pyramid than on the underlying population. When depression leads to a sudden downward mobility, the men affected experience a de-regulation in their lives--a loss of moral certainty and customary expectations that are no longer sustained by the group to which these men once belonged. Similarly, the rapid onset of prosperity may lead some people to a quick upward mobility and hence deprive them of the social support needed in their new styles of life. Any rapid movement in the social structure that upsets previous networks in which life styles are embedded carries with it a chance of anomie.

Durkheim argued that economic affluence, by stimulating human desires, carries with it dangers of anomic conditions because it "deceives us into believing that we depend on ourselves only," while "poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint in itself." Since the realization of human desires depends upon the resources at hand, the poor are restrained, and hence less prone to suffer from anomie by virtue of the fact that they possess but limited resources. "The less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs indefinitely."

By accounting for the different susceptibility to anomie in terms of the social process--that is, the relations between individuals rather than the biological propensities of individuals-- Durkheim in effect proposed a specifically sociological theory of deviant behavior even though he failed to point to the general implications of this crucial insight. In the words of Robert K. Merton, who was the first to ferret out in this respect the overall implications of Durkheim's thought and to develop them methodically, "Social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in the society to engage in nonconforming rather than conforming conduct."

Durkheim's program of study, the overriding problems in all his work, concerns the sources of social order and disorder, the forces that make for regulation or de-regulation in the body social. His work on suicide, of which the discussion and analysis of anomie forms a part, must be read in this light. Once he discovered that certain types of suicide could be accounted for by anomie, he could then use anomic suicide as an index for the otherwise unmeasurable degree of social integration. This was not circular reasoning, as could be argued, but a further application of his method of analysis. He reasoned as follows: There are no societies in which suicide does not occur, and many societies show roughly the same rates of suicide over long periods of time. This indicates that suicides may be considered a "normal," that is, a regular, occurrence. However, sudden spurts in the suicide rates of certain groups or total societies are "abnormal" and point to some perturbations not previously present. Hence. "abnormally" high rates in specific groups or social categories, or in total societies, can be taken as an index of disintegrating forces at work in a social structure.

Durkheim distinguished between types of suicide according to the relation of the actor to his society. When men become "detached from society," when they are thrown upon their own devices and loosen the bonds that previously had tied them to their fellow, they are prone to egoistic, or individualistic, suicide. When the normative regulations surrounding individual conduct are relaxed and hence fail to curb and guide human propensities, men are susceptible to succumbing to anomic suicide. To put the matter differently, when the restraints of structural integration, as exemplified in the operation of organic solidarity, fail to operate, men become prone to egoistic suicide; when the collective conscience weakens, men fall victim to anomic suicide.

In addition to egoistic and anomic types of suicide, Durkheim refers to altruistic and fatalistic suicide. The latter is touched upon only briefly in his work, but the former is of great importance for an understanding of Durkheim's general approach. Altruistic suicide refers to cases in which suicide can be accounted for by overly strong regulation of individuals, as opposed to lack of regulation. Durkheim argues in effect that the relation of suicide rates to social regulation is curvilinear--high rates being associated with both excessive individuation and excessive regulation. In the case of excessive regulation, the demands of society are so great that suicide varies directly rather than inversely with the degree of integration. For example, in the instance of the Hindu normative requirement that widows commit ritual suicide upon the funeral pyre of their husbands, or in the case of harikiri, the individual is so strongly attuned to the demands of his society that he is willing to take his own life when the norms so demand. Arguing from statistical data, Durkheim shows that in modern societies the high rates of suicide among the military cannot be explained by the deprivations of military life suffered by the lower ranks, since the suicide rate happens to be higher for officers than for enlisted men. Rather, the high rate for officers can be accounted for by a military code of honor that enjoins a passive habit of obedience leading officers to undervalue their own lives. In such cases, Durkheim is led to refer to too feeble degrees of individuation and to counterpose these to the excesses of individuation or de-regulation, which account, in his view, for the other major forms of suicide.

Durkheim's discussion of altruistic suicide allows privileged access to some of the intricacies of his approach. He has often been accused of having an overly anti-individualistic philosophy, one that is mainly concerned with the taming of individual impulse and the harnessing of the energies of individuals for the purposes of society. Although it cannot be denied that there are such tendencies in his work, Durkheim's treatment of altruistic suicide indicates that he was trying to establish a balance between the claims of individuals and those of society, rather than to suppress individual strivings. Acutely aware of the dangers of the breakdown of social order, he also realized that total control of component social actors by society would be as detrimental as anomie and de-regulation. Throughout his life he attempted to establish a balance between societal and individual claims.

Durkheim was indeed a thinker in the conservative tradition to the extent that he reacted against the atomistic drift of most Enlightenment philosophy and grounded his sociology in a concern for the maintenance of social order. As Robert Nisbet has shown convincingly, such key terms as cohesion, solidarity, integration, authority, ritual, and regulation indicate that his sociology is anchored upon an anti-atomistic set of premises. In this respect he was like his traditionalist forebears, yet it would be a mistake to classify Durkheim as a traditionalist social thinker. Politically he was a liberal--indeed, a defender of the rights of individuals against the state. He also was moved to warn against excesses of regulation over persons even though the major thrusts of his argument were against those who, by failing to recognize the requirements of the social order, were likely to foster anomic states of affairs. Anomie, he argued, was as detrimental to individuals as it was to the social order at large.

Durkheim meant to show that a Spencerian approach to the social realm, an approach in which the social dimension is ultimately derived from the desire of individuals to increase the sum of their happiness, did not stand up before the court of evidence or the court of reason. Arguing against Spencer and the utilitarians, he maintained that society cannot be derived from the propensity of individuals to trade and barter in order to maximize their own happiness. This view fails to account for the fact that people do not trade and barter at random but follow a pattern that is normative. For men to make a contract and live up to it, they must have a prior commitment to the meaning of a contract in its own right. Such prior collective commitment, that is, such a non-contractual element of contracts, constitutes the framework of normative control. No trade or barter can take place without social regulation and some system of positive and negative sanctions.

Durkheim's main shafts against individualistic social theories notwithstanding, he was by no means oblivious of the dangers of overregulation to which Spencer's social philosophy had been especially sensitive. Durkheim saw man as Homo duplex--as body, desire, and appetite and also as socialized personality. But man was specifically human only in the latter capacity, and he became fully human only in and through society. Hence, true moral action lies in the sacrifice of certain individual desires for the service of groups and society. But such sacrifices redound in the last analysis to the benefit of individuals, as well as society, since unbridled desires lead to frustration and unhappiness rather than to bliss and fulfillment. Modern society seems to contain, for Durkheim, the potentialities for individualism within social regulation. In contrast to earlier types of social organization based on mechanical solidarity that demanded a high degree of regimentation, modern types of organization rest on organic solidarity obtained through the functional interdependence of autonomous individuals. In modern societies, social solidarity is dependent upon, rather than repressive of, individual autonomy of conduct.

Though Durkheim stressed that in modern societies a measure of integration was achieved through the intermeshing and mutual dependence of differentiated roles, he came to see that these societies nevertheless could not do without some common integration by a system of common beliefs. In earlier social formations built on mechanical solidarity, such common beliefs are not clearly distinct from the norms through which they are implemented in communal action; in the case of organic solidarity, the detailed norms have become relatively independent from overall beliefs, responding as they do to the exigencies of differentiated role requirements, but a general system of overall beliefs must still exist. Hence Durkheim turned, in the last period of his scholarly life, to the study of religious phenomena as core elements of systems of common beliefs.

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