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Future of Law Enforcement:
By Jeremy Tamsett, MA
jtamsett@henley-putnam.edu
jtamsett@henley-putnam.edu
In the post-9/11 era, it has become clear that law enforcement has a major role to play in homeland security,
intelligence, and counterterrorism operations in the United States. The potential for collaboration between
transnational criminal groups and terrorist networks pose significant security challenges. This is one growing
area of concern where law enforcement and intelligence are increasing focus and investment.
The Role of Federal and Local Law Enforcement and Intelligence
The line between foreign and domestic intelligence collection is gray and thinning. States and municipalities
play a vitally important role in the collection and analysis of intelligence related to counterterrorism. Many
large metropolitan jurisdictions in the aftermath of 9/11 have established their own intelligence efforts,
optimized for local conditions and perceived community needs. Subsequently, local and state law
enforcement intelligence analysis has expanded to include both counterterrorism and assorted threats to
national security: Law enforcement is no longer confined to merely local activity.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is an example of a local, municipal law enforcement agency
that has formed partnerships with federal law enforcement and the intelligence community. Formed in 2002,
NYPD was the Nation’s first police force to have a separate office dedicated to the counterterrorism mission –
a model that is slowly but surely being adopted by other major metropolitan locations.
Through the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)’s partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
NYC police has access to national level classified intelligence, which enables the Department to work with the
FBI on international terrorism investigations. But it also enables NYC police within the Counterterrorism and
Intelligence Divisions to gather, analyze, and disseminate intelligence through both open source and
classified channels to city, state, and federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In addition, the
Department has participated in international investigations and has police liaisons in 10 cities around the
world.
The Unique Value that Police Bring to Counterterrorism and Intelligence
Law enforcement agencies in every city around the globe are uniquely positioned to best understand the
threat environment of their local communities. The idea here is that knowledge about aberrant and
anomalistic activity in local population centers does not need to be created; it already exists on the street.
Police departments have access to criminal intelligence data that provides them with the ability to detect
emerging threats within their jurisdictions.
Local law enforcement (wherever “local” may be, ranging from Los Angeles to New York or Paris to
Islamabad) is also in the position of being able to develop community awareness, human access, and
technically-enabled collections against identified or suspected threat actors or their co-optees. Police,
therefore, need to interact with not only national intelligence agencies, but also on a global scale through
cooperation agreements with international partners in law enforcement.
Ultimately, the participation of law enforcement intelligence activities, especially in the new strategic security
environment, should be broadly defined to include both federal and local law enforcement, as well as
international law enforcement agencies like Interpol and Europol. If such models of engagement and
interaction are to be successfully implemented, police will increasingly need to acquire skills in global affairs
and undergo language and culture training. More research, study and innovation of emerging models and
paradigms for “global policing” are needed.
The Grand Challenge: Proactive vs. Reactive Strategies
The sophistication and motivation of the adversary in the context of the nebulous environments in which they
operate lies at the very heart of the grand challenge for law enforcement and intelligence as they seek to
move as close and as often as possible to anticipating an adversary’s intentions, plans, and actions (early
warning and prevention – a.k.a. “intelligence”) and away from simply responding to and recovering from
attacks.
Terrorism poses a specific challenge for law enforcement, which has historically been trained to investigate
crimes after the fact and bring the guilty parties to justice rather than hunt down terrorists and prevent
surprise attacks. For example, most criminal justice programs teach police officers how to identify criminals,
take them into custody, and all the while collect information that will stand up on court and bring a conviction.
Certainly legal boundaries play a significant role in the counterterrorism and intelligence role of modern law
enforcement agencies; however, even more emphasis must be placed on understanding the context in which
potential terrorist activities occur so that strategic security professionals (intelligence analysts, protection
specialists, and counterterrorism operators) are best positioned to detect and prevent emerging threat
before it becomes a reality.
Accordingly, there are a range of complexities for law enforcement and intelligence when it comes to
formulation, development, and implementation of proactive strategies, ranging from issues of civil liberties
and legal protections that apply to the practice of religion and right of assembly, to restrictions on
government intrusion without justification or legal countenance. Learning about these types of issues
requires in-depth education and classroom training in addition to hands-on experience.
New Intelligence and Counterterrorism Skill-Sets Needed for Law Enforcement Officers
Law enforcement counterterrorism and intelligence officers must possess new skills to effectively combat
terrorism in their local communities. For example, police in major metropolitan areas will increasingly need to
acquire skills in global strategic security affairs and undergo classroom training to understand terrorist group
dynamics and terrorist techniques.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, for example,
recently told its officers to report incidents “potentially related to foreign or domestic terrorism.” The key
here, as well as at other police departments around the nation, is to properly equip police officers with the
skills and tools they need to be successful in their new homeland security missions related to
counterterrorism and intelligence.
A good first step is to train police how to recognize and report “heightened suspicious activity” in their
jurisdictions, but to be truly effective, law enforcement personnel need to know how to create taxonomies of
support networks (to include transnational criminals and gangs) as a means to map linkages for future
attribution and disruption (including, ideally, prosecution).
Key nodes (including persons with specialized expertise, information, materials and equipment, logistics and
finance) and links (by which the highest priority transfers occur) should be the subject of appropriate law
enforcement and intelligence attention, action, exploitation and manipulation.
Education in this regard must be targeted to not only describe the benefits of information sharing but, in a
very practical sense, it must also teach analysts how to recognize the information that should be shared and
how to create the organizational culture and protocols to share information effectively and appropriately.
Pin-pointing specific loci where shared interests overlap, like money laundering, drug trafficking (to raise
money), and other types of financial support networks are examples where cross-cutting cleavages may exist
between crime and terrorism. Linkages between “strategic” criminal groups (e.g. transnational gangs like
Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13, or organized crime families like the Sicilian and Russian mafia) and terrorist
groups in particular present a dynamic challenge that requires an equally dynamic response.
Jeremy Tamsett, MA is an Analyst with the U.S. Department of Defense and Henley-Putnam University,
where he serves the latter as a researcher, writer, editor, and subject matter expert on intelligence and
counterterrorism. Mr. Tamsett concurrently provides analytic services on terrorism, port security, and nuclear
and radiological weapons issues for the Homeland Security Innovation Association (HLSIA). Formerly, Mr.
Tamsett was President and Founder of International Security Solutions Corporation (ISSC), a consultancy that
provided state and local government entities with subject matter expertise related to WMD terrorism. Mr.
Tamsett has served as a Project Manager and Terrorism Researcher for the Center for Terrorism and
Intelligence Studies (CETIS) and was also a Research Assistant at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in
Monterey, CA. He is co-editor of Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction, (New York: CRC Press, 2008),
forthcoming.
Notes
_____________________________
See for example, K. Jack Riley, et al, “State and Local Intelligence in the War on Terrorism,” RAND, (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND Corporation, 2005) and “Intelligence-Led Policing: The New Intelligence Architecture,” US Department of Justice,
September 2005.
New York Police Department website, available at: http://www.nyc.
gov/html/nypd/html/administration/counter_terrorism_units.shtml.
A good discussion of counterterrorism policing in Europe is found in Mathieu Deflem, “Europol and the Policing of
International Terrorism: Counter-Terrorism in a Global Perspective,” Justice Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, September 2006,
available at: http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zeuroterror.pdf.
‘Global Policing’ holistically integrates national and metropolitan police, intelligence agencies, non-governmental
organizations (NGO), and private/corporate security entities. See John P. Sullivan, “Global Terrorism and the Police,”
Unpublished paper presented at 49th Annual ISA Convention, San Francisco, CA, March 29, 2008.
Josh Meyer, “LAPD Leads the Way in Local Counter-Terrorism,” Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2008, available at: http:
//www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-counterterror14apr14,1,5682393.story.
For an excellent overview of this topic see: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Kyle Dabruzzi, “The Convergence of Crime and
Terror: Law Enforcement Opportunities and Perils,” Policing Terrorism Report, No. 2, Center for Policing Terrorism,
Manhattan Institute, June 2007.
intelligence, and counterterrorism operations in the United States. The potential for collaboration between
transnational criminal groups and terrorist networks pose significant security challenges. This is one growing
area of concern where law enforcement and intelligence are increasing focus and investment.
The Role of Federal and Local Law Enforcement and Intelligence
The line between foreign and domestic intelligence collection is gray and thinning. States and municipalities
play a vitally important role in the collection and analysis of intelligence related to counterterrorism. Many
large metropolitan jurisdictions in the aftermath of 9/11 have established their own intelligence efforts,
optimized for local conditions and perceived community needs. Subsequently, local and state law
enforcement intelligence analysis has expanded to include both counterterrorism and assorted threats to
national security: Law enforcement is no longer confined to merely local activity.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is an example of a local, municipal law enforcement agency
that has formed partnerships with federal law enforcement and the intelligence community. Formed in 2002,
NYPD was the Nation’s first police force to have a separate office dedicated to the counterterrorism mission –
a model that is slowly but surely being adopted by other major metropolitan locations.
Through the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)’s partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
NYC police has access to national level classified intelligence, which enables the Department to work with the
FBI on international terrorism investigations. But it also enables NYC police within the Counterterrorism and
Intelligence Divisions to gather, analyze, and disseminate intelligence through both open source and
classified channels to city, state, and federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In addition, the
Department has participated in international investigations and has police liaisons in 10 cities around the
world.
The Unique Value that Police Bring to Counterterrorism and Intelligence
Law enforcement agencies in every city around the globe are uniquely positioned to best understand the
threat environment of their local communities. The idea here is that knowledge about aberrant and
anomalistic activity in local population centers does not need to be created; it already exists on the street.
Police departments have access to criminal intelligence data that provides them with the ability to detect
emerging threats within their jurisdictions.
Local law enforcement (wherever “local” may be, ranging from Los Angeles to New York or Paris to
Islamabad) is also in the position of being able to develop community awareness, human access, and
technically-enabled collections against identified or suspected threat actors or their co-optees. Police,
therefore, need to interact with not only national intelligence agencies, but also on a global scale through
cooperation agreements with international partners in law enforcement.
Ultimately, the participation of law enforcement intelligence activities, especially in the new strategic security
environment, should be broadly defined to include both federal and local law enforcement, as well as
international law enforcement agencies like Interpol and Europol. If such models of engagement and
interaction are to be successfully implemented, police will increasingly need to acquire skills in global affairs
and undergo language and culture training. More research, study and innovation of emerging models and
paradigms for “global policing” are needed.
The Grand Challenge: Proactive vs. Reactive Strategies
The sophistication and motivation of the adversary in the context of the nebulous environments in which they
operate lies at the very heart of the grand challenge for law enforcement and intelligence as they seek to
move as close and as often as possible to anticipating an adversary’s intentions, plans, and actions (early
warning and prevention – a.k.a. “intelligence”) and away from simply responding to and recovering from
attacks.
Terrorism poses a specific challenge for law enforcement, which has historically been trained to investigate
crimes after the fact and bring the guilty parties to justice rather than hunt down terrorists and prevent
surprise attacks. For example, most criminal justice programs teach police officers how to identify criminals,
take them into custody, and all the while collect information that will stand up on court and bring a conviction.
Certainly legal boundaries play a significant role in the counterterrorism and intelligence role of modern law
enforcement agencies; however, even more emphasis must be placed on understanding the context in which
potential terrorist activities occur so that strategic security professionals (intelligence analysts, protection
specialists, and counterterrorism operators) are best positioned to detect and prevent emerging threat
before it becomes a reality.
Accordingly, there are a range of complexities for law enforcement and intelligence when it comes to
formulation, development, and implementation of proactive strategies, ranging from issues of civil liberties
and legal protections that apply to the practice of religion and right of assembly, to restrictions on
government intrusion without justification or legal countenance. Learning about these types of issues
requires in-depth education and classroom training in addition to hands-on experience.
New Intelligence and Counterterrorism Skill-Sets Needed for Law Enforcement Officers
Law enforcement counterterrorism and intelligence officers must possess new skills to effectively combat
terrorism in their local communities. For example, police in major metropolitan areas will increasingly need to
acquire skills in global strategic security affairs and undergo classroom training to understand terrorist group
dynamics and terrorist techniques.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, for example,
recently told its officers to report incidents “potentially related to foreign or domestic terrorism.” The key
here, as well as at other police departments around the nation, is to properly equip police officers with the
skills and tools they need to be successful in their new homeland security missions related to
counterterrorism and intelligence.
A good first step is to train police how to recognize and report “heightened suspicious activity” in their
jurisdictions, but to be truly effective, law enforcement personnel need to know how to create taxonomies of
support networks (to include transnational criminals and gangs) as a means to map linkages for future
attribution and disruption (including, ideally, prosecution).
Key nodes (including persons with specialized expertise, information, materials and equipment, logistics and
finance) and links (by which the highest priority transfers occur) should be the subject of appropriate law
enforcement and intelligence attention, action, exploitation and manipulation.
Education in this regard must be targeted to not only describe the benefits of information sharing but, in a
very practical sense, it must also teach analysts how to recognize the information that should be shared and
how to create the organizational culture and protocols to share information effectively and appropriately.
Pin-pointing specific loci where shared interests overlap, like money laundering, drug trafficking (to raise
money), and other types of financial support networks are examples where cross-cutting cleavages may exist
between crime and terrorism. Linkages between “strategic” criminal groups (e.g. transnational gangs like
Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13, or organized crime families like the Sicilian and Russian mafia) and terrorist
groups in particular present a dynamic challenge that requires an equally dynamic response.
Jeremy Tamsett, MA is an Analyst with the U.S. Department of Defense and Henley-Putnam University,
where he serves the latter as a researcher, writer, editor, and subject matter expert on intelligence and
counterterrorism. Mr. Tamsett concurrently provides analytic services on terrorism, port security, and nuclear
and radiological weapons issues for the Homeland Security Innovation Association (HLSIA). Formerly, Mr.
Tamsett was President and Founder of International Security Solutions Corporation (ISSC), a consultancy that
provided state and local government entities with subject matter expertise related to WMD terrorism. Mr.
Tamsett has served as a Project Manager and Terrorism Researcher for the Center for Terrorism and
Intelligence Studies (CETIS) and was also a Research Assistant at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in
Monterey, CA. He is co-editor of Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction, (New York: CRC Press, 2008),
forthcoming.
Notes
_____________________________
See for example, K. Jack Riley, et al, “State and Local Intelligence in the War on Terrorism,” RAND, (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND Corporation, 2005) and “Intelligence-Led Policing: The New Intelligence Architecture,” US Department of Justice,
September 2005.
New York Police Department website, available at: http://www.nyc.
gov/html/nypd/html/administration/counter_terrorism_units.shtml.
A good discussion of counterterrorism policing in Europe is found in Mathieu Deflem, “Europol and the Policing of
International Terrorism: Counter-Terrorism in a Global Perspective,” Justice Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, September 2006,
available at: http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zeuroterror.pdf.
‘Global Policing’ holistically integrates national and metropolitan police, intelligence agencies, non-governmental
organizations (NGO), and private/corporate security entities. See John P. Sullivan, “Global Terrorism and the Police,”
Unpublished paper presented at 49th Annual ISA Convention, San Francisco, CA, March 29, 2008.
Josh Meyer, “LAPD Leads the Way in Local Counter-Terrorism,” Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2008, available at: http:
//www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-counterterror14apr14,1,5682393.story.
For an excellent overview of this topic see: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Kyle Dabruzzi, “The Convergence of Crime and
Terror: Law Enforcement Opportunities and Perils,” Policing Terrorism Report, No. 2, Center for Policing Terrorism,
Manhattan Institute, June 2007.
Local law enforcement constitutes a critical layer in identifying, developing and tapping tactical
criminal intelligence sources which can be useful for both domestic and foreign intelligence
enterprises. Today, for example, major metropolitan law enforcement police units can easily
and readily move in and out of local, national or even international jurisdictions and domains.
criminal intelligence sources which can be useful for both domestic and foreign intelligence
enterprises. Today, for example, major metropolitan law enforcement police units can easily
and readily move in and out of local, national or even international jurisdictions and domains.
The major limitation in a traditional criminal justice degree, therefore, is that the investigative
and prosecutorial process only begins after a crime has been committed – it is a post mortem
activity that occurs after the damage has been done.
and prosecutorial process only begins after a crime has been committed – it is a post mortem
activity that occurs after the damage has been done.
With every new counterterrorism, intelligence, and law enforcement strategy or technique
requires equally dynamic and robust education and classroom training.
requires equally dynamic and robust education and classroom training.
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