The Effectiveness of Police Intelligence Management: A New Zealand Case Study

Intelligence-driven policing strategies are coming to the fore in many countries around the world. This is evidenced by the espousal of the term in the mission statements of police services in Australia and New Zealand, the recent adoption of the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan by the US government, and most notably by the legal commitment to the National Intelligence Model in the UK through the Police Reform Act of 2002. This paper considers intelligence-driven crime reduction as a three-stage process, requiring that: law enforcement interpret the criminal environment, influence decision-makers, and finally that decision-makers impact on the criminal environment. This 3i model (interpret, influence, impact) is used as the framework for an evaluation of the intelligence process in three New Zealand police districts. The results of interviews with 50 decision-makers and intelligence staff suggest that there are difficulties identifying a clear decision-making structure and that there is perceived to be a lack of understanding of intelligence-led policing at the leadership levels of the organization. Furthermore, issues with training, and data quality and availability hamper the ability of intelligence analysts to contribute to the crime reduction effort. This lack of clarity in intelligence use and application may have a negative effect on the ability of the organization to positively impact on the criminal environment.