Strategic Thinking in Criminal Intelligence.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Biles, David
• Date: 01 August 2006

Strategic Thinking in Criminal Intelligence Jerry H. Ratcliffe (Ed.) (2004) Annandale, New South Wales, Australia: The Federation Press, 216pp, ISBN 1862874905

Thinking practitioners in the criminal justice community as well as criminologists interested in law enforcement issues will no doubt take a close interest in this new book which challenges many of the basic assumptions about policing and how it should be conducted. The book may well be seen as an exposition of the latest fad in law enforcement theory, but it would be both unwise and unfair to dismiss it without careful examination as well as a consideration of the alternatives.

While there are clear differences in terminology, approach and priorities between the contributors to this work, in essence, Ratcliffe's book argues that traditional approaches to policing are unable to provide effective responses to a criminal environment which, over the past three or four decades, has become more organised, more transnational and more harmful than ever before. With the available resources always being limited, it is argued that the only sensible future is a style of law enforcement which makes maximum use of intelligence gained from a variety of sources. The day of the bobby on the beat is seen as well and truly over.

A preface by Mick Keelty, the widely respected Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police and Chair of the Board of the recently created Australian Crime Commission, sets an appropriately cautious tone when he says 'We cannot lose sight of the relatively "young" status of the law enforcement intelligence discipline and the ongoing need to educate practitioners and clients, as well as to demonstrate capability to those expected to use the product'. This is a theme which is echoed and expanded at many other places in the book.

The first three chapters of the substantive work describe the history of the development of criminal intelligence philosophies in the United Kingdom and Australia. Jerry Ratcliffe, in the first chapter, sets the scene by outlining the changing business of law enforcement over the past 30 years. In doing this he admits that the book is 'part perspective, part instructional and part polemic'. His commitment and enthusiasm is clear from all of his writing.

The second chapter by Kevin Rogers describes the developments of Australian criminal intelligence and refers to the impact of the Hilton bombing in 1978, as well as the reports of five Royal Commissions...