The Local Contribution to Counterterrorism Policing - Term Paper Example

Local Police Response to Terrorism (Add (Add (Add Introduction Terrorism is a major threat to the modern society as this practice not only claims lives of huge number of people but also impedes the overall economic development of a nation. Terrorism can be simply defined as the preplanned use of terror as way to coerce people or a nation for the purpose of achieving a particular objective. Considering the severity and increased frequency of terror attacks in modern days, especially after the 9/11 events, nations worldwide give specific focus on the suppression of terror groups. In addition to national and international agencies, nowadays local police institutions also play a significant role in the policing of terrorism. In the United States, federal law enforcement agencies such as Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and other local police agencies at the state, county, and municipal levels have been assigned with the duty of policing terrorism. Although contribution of local police to counterterrorism practices does not generally get wide media coverage, local police plays a major role in fighting terrorism. The local contribution to counterterrorism policing is particularly important in the United States since the US police practices were historically focused at the local level. This paper will specifically discuss local police response to terrorism. Types of Local Police Responses to Terrorism 1. Intelligence-led policing The concept of intelligence-led policing has attained wider attention in the United States since FBI reports indicate that the US is the world’s one of the hottest destinations for terror attacks. Although the intelligence based policing policy was developed as a way of reducing policing costs in the US, nowadays the nation uses this approach to address counterterrorism activities. According to the 9/11 Commission report (as cited in Gill, 2006), intelligence-led policing is a potential approach to ‘join up the dots’. Currently, the New York Police Department is the largest high profile user of intelligence-led policing tactics, with over 1,000 officers working to fight terrorism. This policing strategy would be accessible to the local police departments to easily identify suspicious activities (For instance, high volume purchase of hydrogen peroxide) and thereby timely respond to them. The US local police also encourage people to report any suspicious activity to local authorities through the police hot line. Through media broadcasts, today people have good knowledge about which situations are likely to develop into a terrorist attack. Hence, the local police hotline system together with the national intelligence sharing practices supports the nation to effectively defend terrorist threats. Undoubtedly, this policy would be applicable for nations to significantly reduce policing expenses, and damages that are likely to happen in the event of a terror attack. Moreover, this system would provide citizens with a feel of safety as they believe that the intelligence-led policing policy can give prior warning of terrorist attacks. 2. Community Policing Community policing is another type of policing strategy deployed to improve local police responses to terrorism. According to Kappeler and Gaines (2011, p. 193), since the local police are in a better position to regularly interact with local residents, community leaders, and business owners, they can easily detect even slight changes in their patrol area. Officials report that such regular communication has assisted the local police many times to get some valuable pieces of information regarding terrorist attack planning. Experts indicate that talking regularly with the community’s key members is essential for local police to make a good relationship with them and thereby obtain vital information on time. For this purpose, police officers have to be assigned to particular areas so that they can get a clear view of local issues and problem makers in that community. While assigning operational areas to police officers, authorities concerned should ensure that officers are left in places where they can easily earn trust of communities. In addition, local police should be provided with flexible working shifts and other necessary operational facilities. In the words of Clarke and Newman, “if they are to serve an intelligence function, officers must be trained in what signs to look for, and in sifting the few kernels of wheat from the overpowering chaff of useless information” (Clarke & Newman, 2007). The authors continue that community policing has several advantages over conventional policing activities. The major most potential advantage of this policy is that it is greatly beneficial to earn community trust. In addition, it would avoid profiling and phone tapping charges, and minimize unfair political influences. Finally, community policing would benefit a nation to avoid costly unproductive surveillance activities. 3. Focus on Immigrant Communities While scrutinizing recent terrorists attack events across the world, it seems that local police can effectively respond to this issue if they give specific focus on immigrant communities. Evidences indicate that immigrant communities assist foreigners to enter a new country, particularly when language becomes a barrier for communication. In addition, these communities help foreign terrorists to acquire SIM cards, bank accounts, and credit cards. Investigation reports reflect that the individuals involved in the 1993 World Trade Center attack got assistance from immigrant communities in the United States. It must be noted that these communities were unaware of the actual intentions of the attackers. Some recent reports indicate that immigrant communities often become a potential source of income for terrorist groups including Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda’s fund raising campaigns based on charities and mosques have been reported by reliable sources. From this, it is clear that local police should give specific focus on immigrant communities to obtain valuable information regarding terror attack possibilities. However, thoughtless and intensive intervention in immigrant communities may produce adverse impacts. Community policing would be an effective tool for local police authorities to avoid terrorism related threats to a great extent even without the use of techniques like intelligence-led policing. “Community policing would also help protect immigrant communities from victimization resulting from the fear of terrorism” (Clarke & Newman, 2007). It is observed that majority of the immigrants have little understanding of the United States’ law enforcement practices and hence they are being inadvertently made use of by foreign terrorists. This situation can be improved if the federal government promotes community policing approach. Perspectives on Local Counterterrorism Policing Countries today strive to ensure the active involvement of local police in counterterrorism practices. Pointing to some severe terror attacks on the American soil including Oklahoma bombing and World Trade Center attack, US regulators anticipate that a terror attack may strike the nation anywhere at any time. National level policing agencies reflect that impacts of a terror attack are greatly felt locally despite the place targeted for attack. Those agencies also indicate that the primary goal of terrorism is to instill fear in people and hence terrorist groups may try to efficiently meet this goal by targeting local communities. Hence, regulators strongly stress the need for assigning the local police with the responsibility of actively taking part in counterterrorism practices. Similarly, US police department professionals opine that cooperation between the nation’s different policing agencies has to be improved for effectively promoting counterterrorism practices in the country. For this purpose, national level agencies and other functionally specialized agencies should continuously communicate with local police institutions. More precisely, the country’s various law enforcement agencies have to increase level of support provided to local police departments. Finally, local police agencies must ensure effective cooperation from political leaders and citizens at the state and local levels. National level law enforcement authorities strongly suggest the local police to improve its system of intelligence work as this is the best strategy to prevent terror attacks effectively. This is a proactive method of policing and involves routine collection of intelligence information from various sources regardless of whether there is threat of terror attack. It seems that an effective mechanism for collecting intelligence information has not yet been developed at the local level. Hence, the federal government has to take thoughtful measures to foster intelligence-based policing involving activities like proactive surveillance and inquiries as way of effectively responding to increasing frequency of terror attacks. Through such practices, local police agencies can easily identify vulnerable communities and people/groups that support terrorist ideologies. Local Police Response to Counterterrorism in New York City Since the events of 9/11, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has been improving its local police response to terrorist attacks. This event persuaded the NYPD to set counterterrorism policing as its one of the most important missions. Currently, New York City’s most vulnerable areas like financial district are under strong and constant police surveillance (New York Civil Liberties Union, 2006). In addition, a number of additional tactical teams are always prepared to face any unforeseen contingency and these forces are deployed on a need basis. In the New York City, local police forces are heavily armed and deployed across the city. The NYPD organizes a range of training programs for local police agencies to enable them to be familiar with the use of special counterterrorist tactics, sketching of high risk infrastructure areas, and various types of terrorist threats. In response to the 9/11 event, the NYPD set up a special Counterterrorism Bureau and an Intelligence Division. In addition, the NYPD (as cited in Kelly, 2009) developed a program called ‘NYPD Shield’ to make an effective link between counterterrorism practices and private sector security. This program strengthens the cooperative relationship between the private sector and the local police departments. The Joint Terrorism Task Force facilitates intelligence information exchange between NY City’s local police department and law enforcement agencies at the federal level. Finally, the NY local police authorities cooperate with international agencies like Interpol. Issues in Local Policing Although the intelligence-led policing has several advantages, it sometimes raises numerous operational difficulties to local police departments. Through hot line facility, local police agencies are likely to get more useless information than the useful lot. Hence, it may be a difficult task for police departments to examine the reliability of such a huge bundle of information. Police department professionals indicate that timely sharing of intelligence information is not often possible since many local police departments do not have sufficient intelligence capacity (United Nations, 2006). The major cause of this issue is that many local departments lack properly trained staff and effective technological support. When local policing agencies lack the technological support for facilitating a shared understanding of intelligence information, they cannot timely react to terror events. Reports indicate that many local policing authorities do not get the support of even qualified crime analysts. Similarly, it seems that national level law enforcement agencies do not often cooperate well with local police as they hold the view that local police agencies cannot contribute to counterterrorism practices. Unlike NYPD, many other police departments lack adequate facilities necessary to promote localization of counterterrorism. Surveillance activities of local police sometimes cause many inconveniences to citizens due to lack of special training and this situation cause to decline community distrust. Some minority communities in US, such as Muslims, complain that local police’s counterterrorism activities often hurt their civil rights since many of the police officers use racial and religion profiling tactics. Undue influence from politicians and community leaders become a potential constraint to counterterrorism efforts of local authorities. Furthermore, local police officers often fail to establish a good relationship with community leaders as they make some negative preconceptions about certain communities. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that local police can have a great role to play in promoting counterterrorism activities since the main goal of terrorists is to instill fear in local people. Intelligence-led policing, community policing, and immigrant community focused policing are some of the better approaches to improve local police response to terrorism. However, community policing seems better as it ensures public security and helps reduce policing costs to a great extent. While considering local police response to terrorism, professionals point to three ideas including terrorism localization, increased cooperation between agencies, and intelligence and proactive policing approaches. The NYPD has established extensive local policing approaches to prevent terrorist attacks in the city. However, it is observed that there are many constraints to local police’s counterterrorism efforts. References Clarke, R. V & Newman, G. R. (2007). Police and the prevention of terrorism. Policing, 1(1), 9-20. Gill, P. (2006). Not just joining the dots but crossing the borders and bridging the voids: Constructing security networks after 11 September 2001. Policy and Society, 16(1), 27-49. Kappeler, V. E & Gaines, L. K. (2011). Community Policing: A Contemporary Perspective. USA: Elsevier. Kelly, R. (2009). The post- 9/11 NYPD: Where are we now?. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from http://www.cfr.org/homeland-security/post-911-nypd-we-now/p19198 New York Civil Liberties Union. (2006). Who’s watching clinic?: Video camera surveillance in the New York city and the need for public oversight, 1-19. Retrieved from http://www.nyclu.org/pdfs/surveillance_cams_report_121306.pdf United Nations: Office on Drugs and Crime. (2006). Police information and intelligence systems: Criminal justice assessment toolkit, 1-30. Retrieved from http://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/cjat_eng/4_Police_Information_Intelligence_Systems.pdf Read More