Knowledge-Based Policing: Augmenting Reality with Respect for Privacy - Discrimination and Privacy in the Information Society - page 170

Intelligence
Intelligence, defined by most police organizations as actionable knowledge, will
typically proof to be actionable within a given context and time frame in the crea-
tive process of for instance the construction of a tactical plan to gather evidence
or execute an arrest. As a consequence, intelligence can only be identified as intel-
ligence in case-specific processes of planning, while it may lose its status of intel-
ligence as the opportunity passes. Thus, like information and knowledge, what
constitutes intelligence is idiosyncratic (related to a person or professional role),
contextual, and dynamic.
9.3 Knowledge-Based Policing
9.3.1 The Need for a New Foundation
Like NIM and ILP literature, current KBP-literature has a highly positivist inclina-
tion, reflected in the positioning of knowledge as just another processing level in
the data-information-knowledge-intelligence chain (cf. Williamson 2008). The
consequence is that 'old' knowledge (of case-specific criminal investigations)
became detached from 'new' knowledge (digital forms of pattern analysis). The
division of work effectuates this. Where police investigation officers are dealing
with 'old' knowledge, (sworn) desk officers deal with 'new knowledge' (Ratcliffe
2008). This division is not only effectuated in role, but also in organizational
structure (Gottschalk 2008; Kop and Klerks 2009). The Dutch police consists of a
large 'operating core' of police officers and criminal investigators that are organ-
ized in a hierarchical and geographical manner (neighborhood, district, region,
(inter-) national). Following the NIM-structure (Centrex 2005) each level has a se-
lection of facilities dealing with information and intelligence, based on the eco-
nomical principles of specialization. Although this division may be justifiable
from a specialization perspective, it comes at the cost of integration (Galbraith
1973). We hypothesize that the dominant positivist epistemological stance hinders
the alignment and integration of old and new knowledge, which may explain why
many police officers regard ILP as inadequate (KLPD 2011).
The solution as we see it does not rest in collecting more data, defining better
information products, or improving the chain from producer to consumer (also
known as sequential collaboration (Puonti 2007)), as may be expected from an
positivist perspective. Instead, we advocate to adopt an interpretive-constructivist
perspective and start approaching knowing and practice as mutually constituent
(Orlikowski 2002). This means that forms of cooperation among desk-officers and
executive police officers need to be stimulated to start the process of mutual
informing, learning, and acting, i.e., to learn to work as a team (also known as
parallel collaboration (Puonti 2007)). Key in this process is the identification and
utilization of boundary objects, which we will discuss next.