Police data
This needs to be
systematically obtained and compiled, to ensure full NIM compliance.
Data should come from:
Sector policing – beat
officers reporting information about users and local criminals,
including community liaison and school liaison officers
The list is endless – the key
is making all officers understand the importance of making logs of
drug information, however trivial they may seem, and proper analysis
of these logs either by BCU analysts or at Force Intelligence Bureaux
(FIB) level. However it is done, the important bit is sharing it,
passing it up and down the line, and gathering it.
This means not just asking
about the individual who is in front of you, but who they buy it from,
where those drugs come from and so on. Data collection at Level 1 must
be aware of the links to Level 2 and try to explore these. Network
analysis should be compiled ideally monthly at BCU level, although
quarterly may be more realistic. This should be able to link people
and places, and supplied routinely to FIB, who should produce force
wide network analysis on the same timetable. This should feed a
similarly timed region wide analysis by NCIS to support regional
tasking.
Through FIB’s there should of
course be links to upstream data from NCS and Customs, channelled
through NCIS. Data should go up as well as down, but if the right
questions are not being asked about sources of supply beyond the
immediate BCU, about where local dealers go to source their drugs,
then this will be limited.
CHISs can of course be tasked
to answer specific thematic gaps in network analyses, such as for
example, in relation to specific drugs.
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