Democratizing Strategic Intelligence?: On the feasibility of an objective, decision-making framework when assessing threats and harms of organized crime

Abstract

Existing policing strategies, e.g. intelligence-led policing (ILP), emphasize rationalization and the efficient management
of crime. Hence, knowledge about the criminal environment in terms of an objective, decision-making framework ought to guide
priority setting according to its proponents. Yet, in this article, I focus on methodologies used for threat and harm assessments
of organized crime. I present three general and interrelated objections concerning this endeavour: (1) conceptual vagueness,
(2) inherent subjectivity, and (3) incommensurability. Furthermore, I introduce two types of suggestions for how to overcome
these objections: categorical and conditional suggestions. Finally, I attempt to qualify the suggestions by broadening the
single perspective of police organizations and embracing the uncertainties and values notoriously connected with such assessments.
I argue that a participatory approach to the methodology of threat and harm assessments, via inclusion of interests and values
from an extended peer-community, e.g. when designing methodologies, may render strategic intelligence more reliable.

Full text

Article
Democratizing Strategic Intelligence?
On the feasibility of an objective, decision-making framework
when assessing threats and harms of organized crime
Kira Vrist Rønn*
Abstract Existing policing strategies, e.g. intelligence-led policing (ILP), emphasize rationalization and the
efficient management of crime. Hence, knowledge about the criminal environment in terms of an objective,
decision-making framework ought to guide priority setting according to its proponents. Yet, in this article, I focus
on methodologies used for threat and harm assessments of organized crime. I present three general and interrelated
objections concerning this endeavour: (1) conceptual vagueness, (2) inherent subjectivity, and (3) incommensurabil-
ity. Furthermore, I introduce two types of suggestions for how to overcome these objections: categorical and condi-
tional suggestions. Finally, I attempt to qualify the suggestions by broadening the single perspective of police
organizations and embracing the uncertainties and values notoriously connected with such assessments. I argue
that a participatory approach to the methodology of threat and harm assessments, via inclusion of interests and
values from an extended peer-community, e.g. when designing methodologies, may render strategic intelligence more
reliable.
Introduction
Strategic, future-oriented, and targeted are the
catchphrases of one of the current, most common
policing strategies, known as intelligence-led
policing (ILP) (Maguire, 2000;Ratcliffe, 2008,
2009). These three phrases announce a sea change
within policing, from a mainly reactive to a
proactive scope (Ericson and Haggerty, 1997;
Innes and Sheptycki, 2004;Maguire, 2000;
Ratcliffe, 2008). The two-horned aim of policing
in general terms is still crime reduction and social
peacekeeping, but the means, according to this
strategy, are different from earlier policies. The
core idea of ILP is:
Instead of tackling crime one laborious
investigation at a time, never truly
having an impact on the more expan-
sive criminal opportunity structure, the
capacity to step back and place threats
and risks into a holistic perspective
!Rønn, K. V., Section of Philosophy, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, Faculty of Humanities,
University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 80, 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark. E-mail: kirav@hum.ku.dk
1
Policing, pp. 1–10
doi:10.1093/police/pas056
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that assesses the social harm of crimin-
ality may allow policing to prevent
crime across a wide area rather than
solve a single event that has already
occurred (Ratcliffe, 2008: 8).
Hence, an underlying assumption of this shift in
strategy is that a previous retrospective, case-by-
case focus is neither efficient nor desirable when it
comes to crime reduction.
1
First and foremost,
the shift in strategy entails that intelligence analysis
takes centre stage in policing. According to ILP,
strategic intelligence can provide an ‘objective,
decision-making framework’ and thus enable
decision-makers to allocate resources accordingly
(Ratcliffe, 2009: 4).
This article provides a critical comment on the
feasibility of strategic intelligence providing such an
objective, decision-making framework. Strategic
intelligence refers in this article mainly to threat
and harm assessments in the domain of organized
crime. The outline of the article is the following:
(1) a presentation of intelligence analysts as
the new expert advisors of police organizations,
(2) a brief introduction to existing types of threat
and harm assessment methodologies, (3) a presen-
tation of three objections concerning the feasibility
of these methodologies, (4) a presentation of
two types of suggested solutions to meet these
challenges, and finally (5) my suggestion for
achieving a reliable framework for decision-
making. I will refer to this as a suggestion to
move towards democratisation of strategic
intelligence.
Intelligence analysts as expert
advisors
As the title of the strategy literally prescribes,
intelligence is the key component of ILP.
2
Here,
intelligence is the product of an inquiry, where
knowledge is obtained in order to guide decisions
(Fig 1).
The model above illustrates the ideal relation-
ships among actors according to ILP. The central
components are (1) the criminal environment,
(2) the intelligence analysts, who interpret the crim-
inal environment, and who then influence (3) the
decision-makers. Finally, the decision-makers
impact the criminal environment based on the
influence from the intelligence analysts.
Proponents of ILP suggest this holistic and
knowledge-based approach is a better and more
efficient way to reduce crime. For them, a precon-
dition necessary to achieve this relationship is
knowledge about the actual criminal environment
(Ratcliffe, 2009;Weisburd and Neyroud, 2011).
Yet, ILP stresses to a greater degree than previous
strategies the relationship between intelligence ana-
lysts and decision-makers.
3
Hence, the strategy
seeks to increase the integrity and autonomy of
Figure 1: 3xi-model (Ratcliffe, 2008,2009).
1
Proponents of ILP often frame the strategy as a response to a changing crime picture into more complex, organized and
transnational crime since the 1980s (e.g. Ratcliffe, 2008).
2
It is crucial to differentiate between at least two levels of intelligence: raw intelligence and final intelligence. Raw intelligence
refers to collected information on matters of interest for the police organization. Raw intelligence constitutes (among other
types of information) the source for final intelligence, which is the analytical product of an inquiry conducted in order to
enable guidelines for decision-makers. It is the latter, final intelligence, which is referred to as intelligence in this article (see,
e.g. Bruce and George, 2008).
3
This is evident in the following quotation: ‘without the ability for the intelligence process to influence the thinking of
decision-makers who then implement strategies that impact on the criminal environment, there is no intelligence-led
policing’ (Ratcliffe, 2009: 3).
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the professionals of police organizations by mani-
festing the intelligence analysts as expert advisors
for decision-makers on every level.
4
The direction of the arrow in the 3xi-model
from intelligence to decision-makers therefore is
decisive for the successful implementation of the
strategy. Thus, ILP contrasts with an alternative
model, wherein the decision-makers singularly
determine the priorities of police organizations
without consulting knowledge of particular crim-
inal environments.
In this sense, ILP seeks to comply with what
would be phrased, according to proponents of
ILP, as illegitimate political influence on the crim-
inal environment via so-called intelligence-to-please
or the politicization of intelligence (e.g. Bar-Joseph,
2011). Thus, ILP reflects the view that priorities and
decisions ought not be based on populist political
interests, moral panic, randomness etc. Rather,
decisions ought to be founded in facts and know-
ledge about the criminal environment.
5
The emphasis on intelligence for providing
expert advice reflects confidence in the feasibility
of rationalization of crime control and in the con-
ceptualization of crime ‘as calculable and probabil-
istic events’ (Innes et al., 2005;Tusikov, 2012: 101).
This is, e.g. evident in the methodology used when
assessing threats and harms of organized crime.
6
The aim of such assessments is exactly to provide
an objective basis for decision-making. Below,
I will address the feasibility of this assumption by
presenting three types of challenges directed at
variants of threat and harm assessment
methodologies.
Assessing threats and harms of
organized crime
Strategic intelligence, understood as threat and
harm assessments, constitutes a central link be-
tween the priority setting of decision-makers and
a specific criminal environment, and thereby con-
stitutes a core case of the 3xi-model. Strategic threat
assessments of organized crime have been given
high priority within police organizations world-
wide along the endorsement of ILP.
7
The underlying assumption when conducting
these assessments is that threats and harms ought
to guide priorities. Thus, placing priorities on the
biggest threats and harms will lead to a targeted and
efficient allocation of police resources. I will not
address this general claim related to the efficiency
of this principle for resource distribution. However,
in order to render the overall claim possible, what is
needed is: (1) knowledge about the threats and
harms posed by organized crime, and (2) the ability
to rank and compare these against one another.
Different methodologies claim to address these
tasks.
In general, two different types of threat assess-
ments exist: a market-based approach and a group-
based approach (Tusikov and Fahlman, 2009). The
market-based approaches focus on assessing the
threats posed by different criminal activities that
4
Intelligence-led policing is one way to phrase a general shift in management strategy taking place within Western law
enforcement agencies from the 1990s. The main purpose of ILP and similar strategies is to achieve greater impact and
thus increase quality and efficiency of police resources on every level. Yet the strategy is not solely applied when counteracting
organized crime. According to proponents of ILP and similar strategies efficiency and quality ought primarily to be increased
via analysis of the particular criminal environment and hence via a problem oriented approach to policing which is e.g. also
evident in the National Intelligence Model.
5
This emphasis on knowledge-based decision making within policing, e.g. will ensure a bottom-up approach to decision
making, and furthermore to the collection of information (Hamilton-Smith and Mackenzie, 2010).
6
The focus of this article is organized crime, due to the fact that the majority of methodologies aim at assessing organized
(and serious) crime.
7
This is obvious in the increasing importance placed on, e.g. Organized Crime Threat Assessments (OCTA) of, e.g. The
Europol (conducted since 2006) and similar strategic intelligence products conducted on international, national and the local
level worldwide (e.g. Albanese, 2008;Vander Beken, 2004;Vander Beken and Verfaillie, 2008).
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have been categorized as organized crime
(Albernese, 2008).
8
Other threat assessment meth-
odologies focus on criminal actors, where the
groups most often are assessed in terms of their
level of sophistication.
9
Threat assessments are not considered sufficient
grounds for priority setting in the bulk of methodo-
logical literature. Furthermore, assessments of, e.g.
harms posed by organized crime are included
in several methodologies (Tusikov, 2012).
10
It is
beyond the scope of this article to go into detail
regarding specific methodologies of harm or
threat assessments.
11
In the next section, I will
focus on general objections reported in the crim-
inological literature related to the feasibility and the
reliability of such methodologies.
Three objections
Below I have clustered the objections regarding the
methodologies into the following three interrelated
categories: (1) conceptual vagueness, (2) inherent
subjectivity, and (3) incommensurability.
12
Conceptual vagueness
One central objection concerns the lack of precise
definitions of the central concepts. The concepts
of threats and harms from organized crime do
not provide sufficient clarity themselves for con-
ducting reliable assessments (Hamilton-Smith and
Mackenzie, 2010). In a review of nine threat
assessment methodologies of organized crime,
Zoutendijk (2010) makes this point clear. He
found that most reports claim to assess threats
of organized crime, but without definitions, or
with only poor definitions, of the term threat
(Zoutendijk, 2010).
In the academic literature, Brown’s threat
definition is referred to as an ‘industry standard’
(Hamilton-Smith and Mackenzie, 2010: 5).
According to Brown, a threat can be subdivided
into intentions (understood as desire and expect-
ations) and capabilities (understood as resources
and knowledge) (Hamilton-Smith and Mackenzie,
2010). In regards to threat concerning organized
crime, this definition would imply that a threat
occurs if and only if someone has intentions and
capabilities of conducting organized crime.
Brown’s definition would presumably narrow the
concept down. However, the following questions,
among others, would still be unanswered. What
does it take for somebody to have sufficient inten-
tions and capabilities to pose a threat? Is there a
threshold for these attributes? And if so, where
ought the line be drawn?
Zoutendijk furthermore points out that some
methodologies include a list of attributes which
would characterize a group posing a threat in
regards to organized crime, e.g. use of violence,
infiltration etc. This might serve as a good approxi-
mation and as a shared vocabulary. However, these
attributes only describe what constitutes organized
8
Albanese proposes a methodology for assessing the activity of organized crime. This does not include a fixed ranking of
activities, which are per se more severe than others. However, it entails indicators which ought to be included when assessing
and comparing threats posed by markets or activities of organized crime. These are: supply indicators, regulation indicators,
competition indicators, demand indicators (Albanese, 2008: 271).
9
Such assessments, e.g. are carried out by relating and evaluating (potential) groups of offenders in regards to a list of
predetermined and ranked attributes. In order to conduct such ranking and evaluation, the methodology is followed by a
manual explaining the respective scores of the attributes, e.g. level of corruption, use of violence, etc. (Tusikov and Fahlman,
2009).
10
Such methodologies, e.g. divide harms into: direct (e.g. physical damage) and indirect harms (e.g. prevention costs) or into
types of harm, e.g. social, economic, and political (Zoutendijk, 2010;Tusikov, 2012;Hamilton-Smith and Mackenzie, 2010).
11
For example, Zoutendijk (2010) and Tusikov (2012) have thoroughly reviewed different methodologies on, respectively
threats and harm assessment methodologies of organized and serious crime.
12
These three categories are inspired by Greenfield and Paoli (2012) in their critique of harm-assessments of drug related
crime. They propose five distinct categories, where I find the three categories above suitable for my general critique of the
feasibility of the methodology of threat and harm assessments of organized crime.
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crime, as opposed to what constitutes a threat posed
by organized crime. Thus, such attempts to define
threats are inherently circular. They argue that
if something can be labelled as organized crime,
then it poses a threat, and if something is a threat
then it is organized crime.
The exact same challenge concerning lack of pre-
cise definitions is directed at the methodology of
harm assessments. Harm of organized crime seems
likewise to be fluent and vague, ending up with a
lack of clarity and claims like: ‘Harm reduction
means what I choose it to mean’ (Greenfield and
Paoli, 2012: 8). Harms in this context may generally
be understood as the ‘negative effects’ of organized
crime (Tusikov, 2012: 103). This definition however
is question begging. This is, e.g. clear in the follow-
ing quotation from Greenfield and Paoli (2012):
What constitutes a harm and from
whose perspective? Should self-inflicted
harm be deemed as “harms”? Who are
legitimately claimants of harm? Are
harms strictly “negative” phenomena
or should they be calculated nets of
benefits? (8).
The problem regarding defining the core concepts
is not simply a challenge related to the specific
notion of threats and harms of organized crime.
Definitions of the applied understanding of orga-
nized crime are just as imprecise,
13
and ‘how we
define organised crime directly determines how
we conceptualise and measure the threats that it
poses’ (Hamilton-Smith and Mackenzie, 2010: 5).
This conceptual objection related to the methodol-
ogies therefore entails a double trap, because it con-
cerns both the concepts of threats and harms, as
well as the core concept of organized crime.
Hence, there are even better reasons to be cautious
when relying on these methodologies and further-
more to question the objectivity of the conclusions
of such assessments. I will get back to suggestions to
overcome these instances of vagueness in the next
section.
Inherent subjectivity
The fact that threats and harms posed by organized
crime are non-trivial concepts in need of further
definition is clear from the objection presented
above. Thus, if a phenomenon is not satisfactorily
defined it cannot be assessed in a reliable way.
However, even if a sufficiently narrow definition
were available, criticisms related to the objectivity
claim of the methodologies would still be an issue.
An interrelated objection to the conceptual vague-
ness is precisely the question regarding whether the
concepts of threats and harms posed by organized
crime can be defined in a neutral way. A neutral
understanding seems to be expected in order to
enable an objective decision-making framework.
However, the reality concerning the core concepts
is different. Zoutendijk phrases this challenge in the
following way: ‘[the] concept of threat and risk are
difficult to operationalise, because in essence these
are normative concepts, like danger, tastiness or
prettiness’ (Zoutendijk, 2010: 83).
Harms caused by organized crime likewise may
be phrased as normative concepts. Defining what
constitute the harms or ‘negative effects’ of orga-
nized crime similarly may be seen as a value-loaded
question (Greenfield and Paoli, 2012;Tusikov,
2012). Yet, a neutral notion of the central concepts
is not feasible according to the majority of critiques
and this fact may impede the reliability and object-
ivity of the assessments. Below I will discuss the
plausibility of this objection.
Incommensurability
The assessment methodologies do not only share
the goal of obtaining knowledge regarding threats
and harms of organized crime. Even a satisfactory
neutral definition of the central concepts would still
imply yet another challenge. This is related to
13
Thus, as anyone familiar with the literature on organized crime would recognize, the definitional ambiguities related to
organized crime are comprehensive and constitute a core Achilles heel (e.g. Larsson, 2008;Paoli and Fijnaut, 2004/2006).
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comparing the level of severity of respectively
threats and harms of organized crime.
In order to enable this the methodology will need
to account for a reliable conception of how the
identified harms and threats ought to be ranked
in relation to one another. Some methodologies
propose a fixed matrix for determining the severity
of threats and harms (Hamilton-Smith and
Mackenzie, 2010). However, critics challenge this
endeavour: e.g. ‘the notion that a specific type of
harm is always more important than other types
does not seem tenable’ (Hamilton-Smith and
Mackenzie, 2010: 10). Both threats and harms of
specific types of crime are extremely context sensi-
tive and will vary depending on place and time
(Ratcliffe and Sheptycki, 2009).
All in all, these objections make clear that the
methodologies of threat and harm assessments of
organized crime are faced with difficulties that chal-
lenge the overall effort of providing an objective,
decision-making framework.
The consequences of not addressing these objec-
tions may be that the assessments in practice will
be based upon presumptions of what constitutes
threats and harms of organized crime and how
these may be compared and ranked. In other
words, the conclusions of such assessments very
likely may result in ‘self-fulfilling prophecies’ and
in the ‘reproduction’ of existing notions of threats
and harms (Larsson, 2008;Ratcliffe and Sheptyski,
2009). This challenge would inevitably lead ILP
back to the point where it started, trying to escape
from randomness and subjectivity in the decision-
making process. However, the situation may be even
worse: the randomness still exists, but it is hidden
behind the apprehension of acting according to
reliable and objective intelligence-knowledge.
Two types of suggestions for
overcoming the conceptual and
methodological ambiguities
It is obvious from the previous section that concep-
tual and methodological ambiguities constitute
grave challenges to the feasibility and plausibility
of achieving objectivity and reliability of threat
and harm assessments of organized crime and
thus for the achievability of an objective decision-
making framework as such.
A subsequent clarification to make may be: What
impact ought these ambiguities and objections have
on the conduct and role of strategic intelligence?
Before turning to my proposal, two types of
suggestions figure: one categorical and the other
conditional.
A categorical suggestion: Focus on
monetary terms
One categorical suggestion for overcoming these
challenges would entail the refusal of the feasibility
of assessing harms and threats as such. In order
to achieve an objective basis for decision-making,
e.g. Zoutendijk (2010) suggests dismissing the con-
cepts and assessments of the threat of organized
crime. Instead, he suggests focusing on concepts,
which are ‘measurable’. He phrases his suggestion
in the following way: ‘it would be more productive
if researchers avoid wording such as threat and risk
and use words and concepts on which there is a
significant amount of consensus instead’ (84).
His solution will inevitably dismiss the existing
tendentious scope of strategic harm and threat as-
sessments by only emphasizing ‘the measurement
of variables which can be expressed in monetary
terms’. He further argues: ‘the monetary focus
will enable a tentative comparison amongst differ-
ent organised crime activities on single variables
[i.e., numbers of murders], without having to
make normative decisions’ (Zoutendijk, 2010).
This suggestion to conduct assessments of meas-
urable and monetary terms only, however, would
likewise delimit the overall scope of strategic intel-
ligence of providing knowledge on trends and ten-
dencies concerning organized crime. Since this
is simply not feasible, according to Zoutendijk,
the intelligence analysts and decision-makers will
need to bite the bullet and only assess and compare
on a smaller scale than previously done. Hence,
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objectivity comes at the expense of assessing threats
and harms according to this suggestion.
Conditional suggestion: Follow suit
and downgrade ambitions
Whereas the suggestion above would call the exist-
ing attempt to conduct strategic threat and harm
assessments a dangerous illusion, another type of
suggestion would be less categorical. A conditional
suggestion to overcome the challenges would be to
ensure that the concepts are satisfactorily (but not
necessarily neutrally) defined. In a review of harm
assessment methodologies conducted by Tusikov
(2012), she suggests spelling out the applied no-
tions of the central concepts in every assessment
report: ‘key concepts, particularly organised
crime, harm, threat, serious crime and significant
crime, should be clearly defined in all documents’
(112). The fact that the concepts of threats and
harms are inherently value-concepts will not be ad-
dressed here. However, assessing threats and harms
posed by organized crime may still be conducted,
but with lower ambitions. Hence, the conditional
suggestion may be phrased as an emphasis on the
importance to follow suit, and thereby render reli-
able intelligence analysis possible.
Along these lines, a Canadian harm feasibility
report concludes in general terms that intelligence
assessments may be applied as guidance or as
‘broad estimates’ only and not as exact and accurate
conclusions (Johnston et al., 2009: 3). This sugges-
tion may be phrased as a proposal to downgrade the
expectations placed on strategic intelligence.
Levels of objectivity
The two types of suggestions presented above may
be distinguished in terms of disagreement related to
the applied notion of objectivity and therefore in
terms of different normative stands regarding
whether uncertainties and values may be included
in expert advising or not. According to the categor-
ical suggestion, objectivity is absolute, and expert
advising ought to be value free and neutral conduct.
This is not the case with the conditional suggestion.
Here, objectivity is better understood as partial,
and expert advising as a bounded and value-laden
activity, where the importance of spelling out the
specific perspective in order to achieve reliability is
emphasized.
In short, both views are subject to the general
concern related to treating value-laden and am-
biguous concepts (threats and harms) as if they
were not. Both types of suggestions to overcome
this concern are plausible. However, they entail
limitations: the categorical suggestion in fact will
not include assessment understood as interpretation
of the existing situation and will not entail advice.
The interpretation of the provided facts is entrusted
to the decision-makers. Hence, this suggestion may
ensure neutrality and impede politicized and biased
expert advise by not taking a normative stand. On
the other hand, the original scope of assessing
threats and harms of organized crime is simultan-
eously dismissed along this suggestion. The condi-
tional suggestion will maintain the original scope of
assessing threats and harms of organized crime.
However, the comprehensibility of the assessments
is decreased and the suggestion represents a move
away from an absolute objective decision-making
framework to a partial objective decision-making
framework. Below I will suggest a way to nuance
these suggestions by including a variety of perspec-
tives instead of only one.
A participatory approach to the
methodology of threat and
harm assessment
The core idea behind ILP is that intelligence
experts are superior in terms of interpreting the
criminal environment (as shown in the 3xi-model).
Apparently, this attempt to manifest intelligence
analysts as expert advisors of policing seems appeal-
ing because it induces integrity and autonomy into
police organizations. However, the problem arises
when what is measured is not easily defined and
values are in dispute.
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A core question in need of answering in this
regard is the following: How may value-disputes
and uncertainties be satisfactorily included in
expert advice in the case of strategic criminal
intelligence?
A general growing importance placed on evi-
dence- and knowledge-based decisions has revealed
that particular issues are not best dealt with by only
attending to the (scientific) experts. Some scholars
argue that cases where challenges can be character-
ized by uncertainties of systems,value disputes and
urgent decisions, a different approach is needed (e.g.
Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993). Examples of such
cases mainly figure in relation to implementation
of new technologies, which are characterized by dis-
agreements among experts and a range of other
agents (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993).
14
In these
cases, new participatory approaches to decision-
making have been introduced as a way to ensure
the trust and accountability of decisions (Maasen
and Weingart, 2009). A participatory approach en-
tails that all (or as many as possible) interests or
parties in a particular challenge are voiced in order
to obtain a variety of perspectives on the issue.
There are different ways to enforce a participatory
approach in order to voice different values and
interests, e.g. focus groups, policy delphies, medi-
ations, consensus conferences, etc. (Hisschemo
¨ller,
2009).
The question is thus whether a participatory
approach to identify and rank threats and harms
of organized crime in order to inform decision-
makers on priority setting may constitute a
plausible alternative/supplement to the existing
methodologies, and if so, how.
As presented above, cases, which would benefit
from a participatory approach by, e.g. attending an
extended peer community, are ones where values
are in dispute, systems are highly uncertain and
decision stakes are high (Funtowicz and Ravetz,
1993). System uncertainties refer to uncertainties
of either the ethical or epistemological kind and
decision stakes ‘reflect conflicting purposes
among stakeholders’ (Funtowicz and Ravetz,
1993: 750). The notion of an extended peer com-
munity means inclusion of ‘the welfare of new
stakeholders’ in order to reach a conclusion in
such cases (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993: 751).
As argued above, the concepts of threats and
harms are inherently value concepts, where both
ethical and epistemological uncertainties are pre-
sent. Furthermore, assessments of threats and
harms are applied as fundaments for decisions
regarding priorities and resources and may
have considerable societal consequences. Thus, in
general, the setting of priorities according to threat
and harm assessments may be seen as a case in
which it might be reasonable to attend to other
and previously salient actors in order to achieve
the most reliable and robust conclusions. This
may be done when elaborating methodologies
of threat and harm assessments and thus when
defining the specific notion of respectively the
terms threat and harm and when ranking these in
terms of severity.
A core unanswered question in order to conduct
this is related to the constitution of such an
extended peer community. Two versions seem to
be possible when constituting a participatory
approach: One narrow version may be inclusion
of the interests, views and values of only ‘experts’
with investigational experience in regards to orga-
nized crime. Another broad version may be to
broaden the perspective even further and include
values, interest and interpretations of a broad
group of stakeholders.
In some of the existing methodologies, the first
version related to the inclusion of a peer-
14
A participatory approach, e.g. has been entailed when implementing GMO technologies and other technologies with high
environmental impact.
15
This is, e.g. the case in the group-based threat assessment methodology, Sleipnir, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
Canada.
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community is applied, when defining the no-
tion of threat.
15
In these specific cases, an
expert-community is consulted when elaborating,
selecting, and ranking attributes that characterize
organized crime (Tusikov and Fehlman, 2009).
However, such an expert-choice method does not
include the perspective on threats and harms of
effected actors other than the intelligence experts
working on one side. Thus a better way to overcome
the objections aimed at the objectivity and reliabil-
ity of existing methodologies may be to include
a variety of out-side perspectives when deciding
both what constitutes threats and harms of orga-
nized crime, and when ranking, respectively the
level of threats and harms of particular crimes
against one another.
A participatory approach or a democratisation
of strategic criminal intelligence may contribute
to more reliable and accurate priority setting
within police organizations. However, there are
many aspects in need of further elaboration in
order to apply this approach.
First of all it is crucial to determine who’s
values and interests ought to be included
when applying a broad participatory approach.
Should this e.g. be interests and values of, victims,
communities, officials, experts, offenders, or others
when deciding the notion of threats and harms and
when ranking these in terms of severity?
The tentative suggestion presented here consti-
tutes so far only a point of departure in regards
to the future of strategic intelligence, and not
sufficiently specific methodological guidelines.
A participatory approach to strategic harm and
threat assessments in my view will not comprise
a substitute but solely a supplement for strategic
intelligence. The proposal constitutes an intermedi-
ate approach between the categorical and the
conditional suggestions presented above. Hence
the suggestion would include two elements: draw-
ing upon the assessments of organized crime in
‘measurable’ and ‘monetary’ terms, as suggested
by Zoutendijk, and emphasizing inclusion and
embracement of the value loaded nature of the
concepts of threats and harms by including a
variety of notions, interests and values, and not
solely one.
Further inquiry into this intermediate suggestion
is necessary in order to enable an actual implemen-
tation. Thus, this article primarily serves to increase
awareness of the epistemological and methodo-
logical limitations of existing strategic intelligence
methodologies and provides a call for further
scrutiny of different anticipations of which elem-
ents contributes to threats and harms of organized
crime in order to enable increased reliability of
strategic intelligence.
Conclusion
This article focuses on the relationship between the
effort to achieve an objective decision-making
framework presented in ILP and general methodo-
logical and epistemological limitations of strategic
harm and threat assessments of organized crime.
The main puzzle concerns the fact that ILP and
accordingly methodologies tend to treat value
concepts (threats and harms) as if they were object-
ive clear-cut terms. In this article, I present two
suggestions to overcome challenges related to
the reliability of threat and harm assessment meth-
odology. Firstly, the categorical suggestion would
impose a solitary focus on monetary aspects of
organized and serious crime and thus impede any
subjectivity from entering the assessments.
Secondly, the conditional suggestion on the other
hand will settle on one notion of the applied con-
cepts and specify this. I argue that another way to
embrace the notorious uncertainties and inherent
value-loaded nature of the concepts of threats and
harms of organized crime may be more feasible. I
draw upon practices from other domains where
values are in dispute, facts are uncertain and deci-
sions urgent, and where a reliable decision-making
framework may be better obtained through a
participatory approach, i.e. by giving voice to an
extended peer-community and stakeholders.
I argue that a similar democratization of the
Democratizing strategic intelligence? Article Policing 9
by guest on December 10, 2012http://policing.oxfordjournals.org/Downloaded from

decision-making process may be a way to embrace
the notorious uncertainties surrounding the
notions of threats and harms posed by organized
crime. Democratizing strategic intelligence thus
constitutes a way (in combination with empirical
facts on specific and ‘measurable’ elements of orga-
nized crime) to ensure accountability and reason-
ability of the decision-making process related to
setting police priorities.
Acknowledgement
I am thankful for valuable comments on previous
versions of the article from Mia R. K. Hartmann,
Nadja K. Hestehave and Vincent F. Hendricks.
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