Landscaping police organisational and technological changes in crime recording and analysis

Since 2000, the United Kingdom´s (UK) police service has employed the national intelligence model (NIM), as well as progressively implementing national technological and organisational tools to provide maximum effectiveness and consistent standards in the performance and delivery of intelligence-led policing to tackle crime. This paper presents the approach of distributed cognition (DCog) to elaborate a model of the components, the coordination and the flow of information within the ´crime recording and analysis´ system. This paper also reports ethnographic fieldwork in police command and control rooms (CMCR), in addition to the review of organisational tools (e.g. code of practice) used to understand potential challenges to the intended transformation and associated innovation. This paper concludes by pointing out how technological and organisational components impact all police forces in recording crime, as well as further enhance intelligence-led policing.