Abstract
Information sharing is the lifeblood of policing, yet information/knowledge sharing within and across organizations remains problematic. This article elaborated on previous research on organizational information culture and its impact on information use outcomes in policing by examining perceived impediments to information sharing of 134 officers in three Canadian police organizations. Inductive qualitative analysis of an open-ended question revealed seven mutually exclusive impediment themes: processes/technology, individual unwillingness, organizational unwillingness, workload/overload, location/structure, leadership, and risk management. When viewed from the knowledge management infrastructure perspective, organizational structure was the single most common impediment identified, followed closely by organizational culture. Each organization had unique constellations of information sharing impediments. Recommendations for policy and practice are discussed.
Highlights
Information and knowledge are literally the lifeblood of policing (Gottschalk, 2010; Ratcliffe, 2012), yet maladaptive information behaviors, values, and cultures along with ineffective structures, technologies, policies, and practices within policing continue to impede information and knowledge sharing within and across police units and organizations in North America
These three impediments accounted for 60% of the barriers to information and knowledge sharing within the three police organizations
Each of the impediments identified represents an opportunity for each organization to review and reflect on its current information/knowledge sharing policies, practices, as well as the culture and context in which these issues arose
Summary
Information and knowledge are literally the lifeblood of policing (Gottschalk, 2010; Ratcliffe, 2012), yet maladaptive information behaviors, values, and cultures along with ineffective structures, technologies, policies, and practices within policing continue to impede information and knowledge sharing within and across police units and organizations in North America. Canadian law enforcement and intelligence agencies received scathing critiques for their information and knowledge sharing policy and practice failures, as illustrated by the Bernardo Investigation Review (Campbell, 1996); the Commission of Inquiry into the Bombing of Air India Flight 182 (Government of Canada, 2010); and the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in British Columbia (Oppal, 2012) Within these three incidents, police were critiqued for their failure to communicate and cooperate across jurisdictions, their deficient knowledge and information support systems and structures, and for personal and organizational values and biases that blocked effective and efficient information and knowledge sharing within and without the police intelligence arena. In 2006, Canada chose to develop and implement a “made-in-Canada” criminal intelligence model, which had a strong focus on “effective intelligence-led policing by establishing standards for intelligence-related structures, processes and practices” (Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, 2008, p. 1)
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