ABSTRACT
The history of the police use of criminal intelligence in the UK has been characterized by a long period of evolution followed by rapid recent change. Initial reluctance in the nineteenth century to allow the police to perform investigative, and particularly covert investigative, functions gradually thinned, allowing the use of criminal intelligence to develop, at first within specialist units and the CID, and more recently into mainstream uniform work. The tactical, operational use of intelligence has grown considerably since the early 1990s, but – arguably more important – strategic intelligence has increasingly been used as the basis for managerial decision-making and prioritization of the use of resources. Intelligence-led decision-making frameworks, as exemplified by the National Intelligence Model, are also beginning to broaden out from the police into the multi-agency partnership activities (especially the work of local Crime and Disorder Partnerships) that are evolving as a major component of current responses to crime problems.
