Reference no: EM132363395

In the last several decades, people motivated by different ideological beliefs and individual factors have engaged in horrifying acts of mass violence aimed at targeting innocent civilians across the country. Unfortunately, these attacks have increased in frequency and lethality. This new reality has challenged law enforcement agencies to ensure their training, tactics, and operational procedures evolve effectively in order to confront offenders who kill and seriously injure defenseless civilians at nightclubs, schools, movie theaters, churches, iconic sporting events, conference rooms and mobile active shootings throughout a community. In response to 9/11, local law enforcement agencies, particularly those within large counties, and state agencies undertook a number of steps: increasing the number of personnel engaged in emergency response planning; updating response plans for chemical, biological, or radiological attacks and, to a lesser extent, mutual aid agreements; and reallocating internal resources or increasing departmental spending to focus on terrorism preparedness (United States, 2015). Perceived risk is an important predictor of agencies taking steps to improve their level of preparedness. Specifically, law enforcement agencies that perceived the risk of future terrorist attacks in their jurisdictions to be higher are more likely to undertake steps to improve their preparedness. Although the size of a jurisdiction and the level of perceived risk are predictive of law enforcement's undertaking preparedness activities, level of risk is a better predictor of receipt of funding. Law enforcement agencies vary substantially in their approach to preparedness and in their support needs. In addition, perceived risk is predictive of agencies taking steps to improve their preparedness, regardless of county size. This suggests that future programmatic support at the federal, state, and local levels will need to be tailored to account for these differences, and that any effort to model or develop objective measures of overall U.S. preparedness will also need to account for differences in risk levels.

The collection of intelligence within the United States is obviously a critical component of the federal government's efforts in the war against terrorism. The first step in disrupting terrorist plots and preventing terrorist attacks is obtaining information about the operations of terrorist groups and the activities of individual terrorists, both inside and outside of our nation's borders. Intelligence collection, however, is only the first step in combating terrorism. A piece of information is like a piece of a puzzle. Oftentimes, only when a piece of information is combined with many other pieces of information does the big picture emerge. Moreover, possessing information without more does not stop terrorism; rather, information must lead to action. This is why it is critical not only that intelligence on terrorist activities is collected but also that this information is shared with other components of the federal government that possess similar information and leads to preventive action that protects American lives (Ratcliffe, 2016). When it comes to the fight for terrorism and intelligence, the most important lesson to learn is that integration works. To fight the war against terrorism successfully, intelligence officials and law enforcement officials must work together in a coordinated fashion and quickly share information on a regular basis.

United States. (2005). Improvements to Department of Homeland Security information-sharing capabilities, vertical and horizontal intelligence: Hearing of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism before the Select Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eighth Congress, first session, July 24, 2003. Washington: U.S. G.P.O.

Ratcliffe, J. H. (2016). Intelligence-Led Policing. Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar: Taylor and Francis.