Intelligence/crime analysis

OPINION: As policing in England and Wales moves towards meeting the Government’s Neighbourhood Policing commitment, former South Wales Police detective Steve Dodd, a subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation and advocate of the community intelligence-led policing methodology (CILPM), explores how the approach can re-establish trust between modern-day policing and communities, and prevent neighbourhood policing from becoming a white elephant.

FEATURE: The recent maiden public speech from the new Chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli – the first female head of the Service – highlighted the challenges around state actors operating in the ‘grey zone’ to pose a risk to the UK’s security and stability; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the nature of those threats, including drones and cyber-attacks, and the role MI6 and policing will need to play in countering them.

INTERVIEW: Developed by an academic team at the University of Sheffield, the Sexual Trafficking Identification Matrix (STIM) assesses adverts on adult service websites and analyses factors such as the photographs, language and details used to help law enforcement identify victims and perpetrators of human trafficking or sexual exploitation, as Dr Xavier L’Hoiry explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

FEATURE: The recent Building Bridges evidence-based policing conference in Ontario showcased efforts by policing to correct the mismatch between how crime is experienced and how it is measured, with a harm-focused framework pioneered by Barrie Police Service and London Police Service’s new gamification approach to hot-sport policing leading the way, as Policing Insight’s Matthew Wood reports.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Today’s law enforcement leaders are pressured to do more with less – all while managing new waves of crime, volumes of complex data and growing demands for public transparency. That’s why departments across the globe are turning to evidence-based policing powered by data and AI, to improve decision making, build trust and work more efficiently.

INTERVIEW: The Hellenic Police is a partner in the NOTIONES project, a European network bringing police agencies together to improve the capacity and capability of intelligence functions; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth spoke to Anthoula Bania and Christos Floros, Lieutenant Colonels in the Hellenic Police, about their work with the NOTIONES network, and the benefits of participating in European security research and innovation projects.

FEATURE: An Inspectorate report into the UK National Crime Agency’s National Data Exploitation Capability (NDEC) is warning that the Agency risks missing vital intelligence due in part to a mounting “technical debt” that means it spends much of its annual IT budget updating hundreds of legacy systems rather than investing in long-term technology solutions, with NDEC staff using outdated and obsolete IT when trying to work on large volumes of data, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A recent report into serious and organised crime (SOC) sets out the need for a new international alliance to “match the speed, reach and ambition of the threat” from organised crime networks, which are currently taking advantage of law enforcement’s traditional geographical boundaries, siloed working, and legacy technology and structures more suited to a “bygone age”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Fraud is rising fast in the UK, fuelled by scams and schemes that thrive on social media. In this article, Fivecast’s David Janson examines why investigators need AI-powered open-source intelligence to uncover hidden networks and stay ahead of increasingly organised criminals.

FEATURE: The recent arrest in Qatar of one of Canada’s most wanted fugitives highlighted the value of the INTERPOL Red Notice system; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth explores how Red Notices work, the level of co-operation required from law enforcement agencies in different international jurisdictions, and why police and border staff need to keep up to date with the active Red Notices.

OPINION: The creation of an FBI legal attaché post in Wellington, New Zealand in July was hailed by the US as a way to counter “some of the most important global issues” such as the threat from China, as well as boosting regional crime operations; but University of Tasmania Policing Lecturer Dr Nick Evans warns that the move could in fact threaten existing policing partnerships that Australia and New Zealand have with China, forcing officers to engage in new levels of diplomacy to maintain cordial relations.

ANALYSIS: Reflecting on a turbulent 12 months for UK policing, Steve Dodd, a former South Wales Police detective and College of Policing subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation, examines some of the key challenges and how the community intelligence-led policing methodology could help forces and officers to address those issues.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Network analysis can identify criminal leaders with 92% accuracy—a precision that manual investigation rarely achieves. But even with this mathematical precision, the volume of insights generated from criminal networks can overwhelm human analysts, leaving critical intelligence buried in complex data relationships.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers (AIPIO) conference is back in Sydney 20-22 August with the theme of "A Thriving Intelligence Profession". Find out more and sign up today!

INNOVATION: To address key areas of crime and vulnerability, UK constabularies can use visual analysis software to pull together data from myriad sources for the prevention of harm, the detection of crime, and the identification of risk; Seth Cooke, a former Avon and Somerset Police intelligence analyst and now i2 Group technical and tradecraft specialist, explains how this technology powerfully supports approaches to knife crime, antisocial behaviour, and violence against women and girls.

OPINION: Twenty years ago this week, UK policing faced one of its largest planned operational challenges – the G8 summit in Scotland – as well the 7/7 suicide bombings in London; in this second article, Policing Insight contributor Graham Wettone – then an experienced sergeant on the Metropolitan Police Public Order Intelligence Unit – describes the training and deployment of intelligence and evidence gathering teams during the summit, and the devastating impact of the London attacks.

ANALYSIS: After the tragic murder of a 19-year-old woman in 2022, Essex Police set about changing how it assesses known and suspected perpetrators of domestic violence and developed an approach to stop them that had been “stolen with pride” from tackling gangs; Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass spoke to Detective Superintendent Matt Cornish and Detective Constable Robert Kedar about their work.

OPINION: The proposed Strong Borders Act, a bill currently before the Canadian Parliament, includes measures that will enable police to obtain information about an individual’s online activity by obtaining a warrant on a lower standard of reasonable suspicion of a crime, instead of probable cause; Thompson Rivers University Professor of Law Robert Diab argues that the new powers will turn tech companies such as Google, Apple, Shaw and Telus into agents of the state.

INTERVIEW: Nauris Paulins, Innovation and Digital Transformation Adviser at the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Latvia, recently spoke to Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth about the work of the unit, its role within the European NOTIONES Project, and how the FIU’s involvement in this and other research and innovation projects benefits both policing in Latvia and forces further afield.

FEATURE: A new report from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services into the UK police response to organised immigration crime (OIC) has called for greater collaboration between forces, better intelligence gathering and sharing, and for OIC to become a higher law enforcement priority in order to tackle the organised crime groups involved, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: AI is transforming the way police forces vet applicants by tackling the vast scale of social media data. In this Q&A, Fivecast’s Joseph Miller explains how open-source intelligence tools are reshaping vetting, making it faster, smarter, and more accurate than ever before.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Law enforcement is taking advantage of the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs.) When combined with intelligence data in the knowledge graphs, the police can query the data using natural language and get accurate, reliable answers due to the nature of graph technology.

OPINION: With the training schedule for the new Neighbourhood Policing Pathway (NPP) beginning next month, and first measures under the new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee due to be in place across England and Wales in July, former South Wales Police detective Steve Dodd, a subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation, looks at the opportunities and challenges for the NPP, and the role of community intelligence-led policing methodology within it.