ABSTRACT
This chapter considers what was referred to in the Introduction to this volume as the ‘intelligence legacy’ of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (SLI). It examines how alternative ways of dealing with intelligence in the policing context emerged in the wake of the SLI; in particular, how academics were brought in as analysts, mirroring the approaches to intelligence found in the submarine tracking room in both world wars (Beesly 1990, 2000). It considers the role of precursors to the National Intelligence Model (NIM) in police intelligence, including the Force Intelligence Development Steering Committee (see Grieve 2004: 30; Savage 2007: 115-116), Systems for Investigation and Detection (SID) (Grieve 2004: 31), Northern Ireland counter terrorist operations, and operations which predated al-Qaeda. I will then move on to look at subsequent developments and how the learning from the SLI was later applied in policing intelligence operations in respect of community impact assessments (CIA). This will include current intelligence operations against terrorism and the application of intelligence systems by the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) (Kerr 2008b: 31 and 2008a: 38), which used both covert and open source intelligence models drawing from academic research and thinking (Bowling 1998a and b; Travis 2001; Stanko 2008), and reflection on the interaction between statutory and street agencies as intelligence tools (Juett, Smith and Grieve 2008). I will offer comment on both intelligence failures identified in the SLI and subsequent intelligence successes, both at tactical and strategic levels. Essentially, the purpose of this chapter is to seek to apply concepts of intelligence and intelligence failure developed outside of the SLI
to the lessons provided by, and the organisational response to, the SLI.
