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Opening the Blackbox: Examining the Craft of Police Intelligence
Information technologies and analytic platforms are an integral part of policing practices. Yet, as police acquire access to increasingly larger data sets, technological platforms and autonomous technologies (e.g., facial recognition software and predictive policing) the more their work retreats behind a "technological veil" that has serious implications for public trust and policing accountability. Central to this new data-driven policing movement is the intelligence analyst, who, working with analytic technologies, translates raw data into intelligence products to predict, identify and disrupt crime. In doing so, analysts engage in sensemaking and use their "craft" (combination of creativity, spontaneity, rigour, and systematic character of science) to sort through and digest large volumes of data to identify what is important and reliable, decide analytic techniques, and draw inferences to inform police decision-making.
This project empirically investigates the craft of intelligence analysis. The research involves an innovative mix of analytic scenarios and observational analyses, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis to address the following objectives:
- To examine how intelligence analysts construct intelligence products, and the knowledge, rationalities, and decisions that inform the craft of intelligence analysis.
- To identify the training, expertise, and competencies that analytic managers hold, and how these shape the craft of intelligence analysis.
- To determine how the technical design of intelligence technologies shapes the craft of intelligence analysis, and identify the assumptions (e.g., about crime, risk, harm) that are embedded in the design of intelligence software.
- To uncover the public goods and harms associated with the socio-technical construction of intelligence analysis.
The research will make visible the low-visibility processes embedded in the craft of intelligence analysis, while also empirically identifying the public goods and harms associated with its production.