Criminal intelligence is information gathered, collated and disseminated by law enforcement agencies concerning types of crime and particular criminals and criminal groups. It is particularly useful when dealing with organized crime. Criminal intelligence may be gathered by using surveillance, informants, interrogation, research, or may be just picked up on the street by individual police officers. Larger law enforcement agencies often have a department which specifically deals with criminal intelligence, which is usually collated on computer systems. The information usually collected and sorted into different types of intelligence. For example, tactical intelligence is used by those units needing the information to make arrests, but other information is so strategic that it only paints a picture after much analysis and confirmation. The information which may be accessible to any officer who needs the information, but usually is disseminated on a need to know basis.

Criminal intelligence analysis focuses on the identification, apprehension and enrollment of offenders into the criminal justice system. Criminal Intelligence Analysts identify investigative leads regarding the relationships between entities of interest and the flow of commodities, money, events, and produce matrices, link charts, flow charts and other analytcial products.

See also

• Police Intelligence (UK)

Law enforcement