ABOUT BOOK

This article describes the police intelligence division-of-labour. It is argued ~that police organisation gains overall coherence in relation to the ‘police ~métier’; a rationale that allows protagonists in the police world to make ~sense of an irrational workplace structure where personal loyalty, trust ~and honour (not formal organisational logic) form the basis of action ~and compliance. The concept of the police métier is defined in terms of ~the police professional concern with the mastery of surveillance and ~coercion in the reproduction of order, the making of crime and the ~governance of insecurity, and it is the polestar of the police mindset. ~The article describes the police intelligence division-of-labour paying ~specific attention to four different aspects of intelligence activity: the ~acquisition of intelligence or information; the analysis of information in ~the production of intelligence; tasking and co-ordination on the basis of ~intelligence ‘product’; or being tasked on that same basis. The descriptive ~analysis presented here is useful in several respects. Firstly it provides a ~basis for the comparative study of police intelligence work and its ~configuration within broader processes of security governance. ~Secondly, it provides a prototypical organisational map useful ~understanding the orientation of particular units – the organisational ~elements of policework (e.g. of drug squads, primary response, public ~order and homicide investigation units) – within the broader police ~division-of-labour. Lastly, it provides a complex view of issues ~concerning democratic governance of ‘the police’ as they are configured ~as nodes within broader networks of security governance.