Policing in Ignorance

In December 2003 Ian Huntley was convicted of the murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, a case that had attracted blanket media coverage since their initial disappearance in August 2002. Controversy grew rapidly as it became clear that Humberside Police had investigated Huntley in connection with eight separate sexual offences during 1995-99 and yet none of this information had emerged when he was appointed as a caretaker at Soham Village College in November 2001 and vetted by Cambridgeshire Police. The Home Secretary appointed Sir Michael Bichard to inquire into child protection measures, record keeping, vetting and information sharing in Humberside and Cambridgeshire police forces. When Sir Michael's report (Bichard, 2004) was published in June 2004 press coverage quickly focused on the dispute between David Blunkett and the Humberside Police Authority over the fate of their Chief Constable, David Westwood, whom Bichard held personally responsible for the appalling state of information management in Humberside Police. The media focus on this highly personalised battle should not surprise us, but it meant less attention was paid to the precise criticisms of police information processes. (' The Guildford Four' , 'Birmingham Six' et al) converged towards the belief that policing simply was not working. An Audit Commission Report, Helping with Inquiries: tackling crime effectively (1993) heralded the birth of 'intelligence-led policing' in which police were to make better use of their resources by a more proactive focus on targeting 'known criminals' and deploying informants and other surveillance technologies in order to pre-empt or disrupt criminal behaviour or organisations. This shift was reinforced by the increased availability of sophisticated software for the relational analysis of data, the promulgation of a National Intelligence Model (NIM) to establish 'best practice' for the development of appropriate structures and processes (NCIS, 2000) and the growth of local, national and transnational security networks incorporating both public and private police.