Government And Intelligence Agencies Report

Running head: CRIMINOLOGY
CRIMINOLOGY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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Introduction
In its broadest sense, terrorism can be defined as the use of violence in an international way
against the civilians of a country for any political purpose. It is often described as the use of
violence in a systematic manner which would create fear in the population with the sole
objective of bringing about any specific objective of the politics. As the term is inherently
ferocious and violent therefore the definition of terrorism is usually very complex and has
many controversies relating to the term. Counter terrorism, on the other hand, can be
described as the tactics techniques and strategies used by the government, military or any
other law enforcement for combating or preventing terrorism. In this paper a brief discussion
will be done about terrorism and its effects. In this paper discussion will be done about the
crimes that the terrorist used for collecting funds for their organisations. The paper will
further provide the readers with the efforts taken by the government and intelligence agencies
to curb terrorism. In this context the paper will discuss about the use of information and
intelligence by the agencies to counter the terrorists.
Terrorism
Terrorism can be described as the use of violence in a systematic manner which would create
fear in the population with the sole objective of bringing about any specific objective of the
politics. As the term is inherently ferocious and violent therefore the definition of terrorism is
usually very complex and has many controversies relating to the term (Newburn 20170.
However section 1 of the Terrorism Act has provided with the general definition of the term
terrorism. Under the provision of this section terrorism can be defined as any conduct, either
by way of threat or by persuasion, is capable of causing immense violence which can further
cause serious damage to the life or the properties of individuals and has been solely designed

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with any specific political agenda. Terrorists can be defined as individuals using violence
against the civilians for any particular political purpose in a unlawful way (Wilkinson 2016).
The terrorist are generally associated with large organisations. There are various ways by
which a terrorism organisation can collect funds for pursuing their agenda. There are many
individuals who support these kinds of activities for their own agenda; they are often seen as
donating funds to the terrorist organisations. Many of the terrorists are often seen as self
funding their organisation. Terrorist often use criminal activities like white collar crimes or
money laundering to collect funds for continuing the terrorist organisations. Terrorist are
often seen as investing in the legal businesses for raising funds for their terrorism
organisations. Organised crime groups can be seen as being used by the terrorists to assist in
the measure and deals of illicit drugs which ensures extraordinary revenue for terrorist groups
with a comparatively little threat of being trapped. By laundering money the terrorist groups
ensure that the law enforcement services are unable to track the movements of cash by the
organizations.
After the funds are collected this wants are transferred to the network organisation of
the terrorists. By help of these funds they are seen as purchasing weapons or equipment, and
use them for covering the expenses necessary for running an organisation. Although, the
steps mentioned are not the only ways in which the terrorists can finance their organisations.
In case the organisation is large, the funds are transferred through the multiple levels present
in the structure of that organisation (Combs, 2017). Funds from one cell of the organization
can often be seen as being used for the governance of the other groups of terrorists working
under the organization overseas. The funds that the terrorists use to finance their activities are
known as the “instrument of crime”.

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Counter terrorism
Counter terrorism can be described as the tactics techniques and strategies used by the
government, military or any other law enforcement for combating or preventing terrorism. To
combat terrorism the government use information and intelligence (Jackson 2018).
Information can be described as the data that has been collected by way of individuals
informing about terrorist activities. Intelligence on the other hand can be described as the
information which the agencies have been collecting from various sources and have kept
them in record by grading and evaluating them. In the British law enforcement agencies both
information and intelligence are considered as the prime methods for heading towards
evidence based policing. Although there multitude of reasons for using analytics by the
British law enforcement agencies, are the most important reason for which analytics are used
for the assessment of information and intelligence is that the information and intelligence are
used by the law enforcement agencies in an efficient manner. The data that are available to
the law enforcement agencies are assessed by analysing them categorically. There are
multitude categories that help the agencies for fighting various criminal activities. The law
enforcement agencies are helped by way of the result analysis for providing outlines towards
the strategies or tactics that can be used to prevent it or reduce crime. By way of the market
profiles the law enforcement officers are needed to be identifying the networks and the main
stakeholders in the organised crime groups. By assessing operational intelligence the
officers can evaluate the information they receive on various organised crime groups or
convicts. By analysis of the demographic of social trends the law enforcement officers are
added for identifying the effect of demographical or societal change towards the crimes in
any community. Network analysis it's the law enforcement officers to identify the roles of
the stakeholders present in an organised criminal activity group and in furtherance help them
to recognise the strengths and the weaknesses present in the group (Blakemore 2016). The

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law enforcement officers analyse the risk by identifying the threats that are possessed by the
criminals individually or in any organised group towards the society.
In the United Kingdom the National Intelligence Model had been established for ensuring
that the data that had been received by the intelligence agencies are collected and stored in a
proper manner by prioritising them. The National Intelligence Model can be seen as working
on three separate levels for the correct and effective use of the information that has been
received and in furtherance helps the law enforcement officers to be taking informed
decisions in relation to criminal activities (Hardy 2015). The first level is the local or the
basic command units which is based on the City Centre of Nottingham. The second level
includes the force units and the regional units based on the police department of
Nottinghamshire and the East midlands. The third level includes the national and the
international units are always seen as being the most serious and organised unit and further
based on England and Wales. All the levels can be considered as equally important for
receiving and processing pieces of information. Although there are many uses of the National
Intelligence Model, however, the model has certain drawbacks as well. One of the major
problems in relation to the NIM is that as the model is operated on multiple levels therefore if
any information is not passed from one level to the other there would be high risk of the
opportunity of the prevention of the crime to be missed.
The law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom can be observed as receiving
information from four primary sources. These four sources are the – external primary
sources, external secondary sources, internal primary sources and internal secondary sources.
The external primary sources are the agencies outside the scope of the government which
work simultaneously with the law enforcement agencies. The external secondary sources are
the informants of the police within the society. The internal primary sources are the
surveillance conducted by the law enforcement officers. The fourth source that is the internal

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secondary sources are the data or information that were already present (Quartermaine
2016). There are a multitude of laws existing in the United Kingdom which deals with the
collection and use of the data by the law enforcement. Some of them include Data Protection
Act 2018, Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
and Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, there are certain drawbacks to the effective
use of these legislations as there have been certain confusions present towards the provisions
in relation to the exchange of information between the law enforcement agencies and the non
government organisations. Often times, because of these confusions, the information is seen
to be lost or got delayed to be shared which in return is seen to deter the proper inquiry of the
criminal activities.
Intelligence is considered to be indispensible for the refuting of terrorism, and
towards the weakening of the strategic effects and premeditated significance. Although a
worthy system of intelligence can be considered as the best defence against global threat of
terrorism, yet, in absence of widespread, quick and secure strategy involving the government
and the political leaders, terrorism will remain to exist as a real threat. In the recent years
there have been an uncountable number of terrorist attacks around the world. Even the states
in the United Kingdom were not spared from the attacks of the terrorists. The intelligence
agencies in the United Kingdom use the information that they have collected for assessing the
level of threat of the terrorist activities. The level of threat of terrorism has been categorised
into five separate levels by Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and security service, MI5
(Counter Terrorism Policing 2017). The levels start from low to critical and include
moderate, substantial and severe levels; where low meaning that there is a highly unlikely
chance of a terrorist attack and critical meaning there is a high likely chance of a terrorist
attack in the future.

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The National Security Strategy can be seen as assisting the Government of the United
Kingdom in advancing the strategies to prevent terrorism. The National Security Strategy
can be observed as setting out 3 vital phases with the purpose of forming opulence, and for
affecting the states and reinforcing the security of the United Kingdom. The Counter
Terrorism Strategy can be observed as being among the vital strategies that the United
Kingdom uses for counter terrorism. It is often known as the CONTEST strategy. The
foremost intention of the CONTEST strategy is to lessen the perils of the transnational
assassination which would ensure the free and assertive business of the citizens on a day to
day basis. The Counter Terrorism Strategy can be considered to be imperative towards the
purpose of upholding the values of the British government such as freedom, acceptance and
veneration for rights of the human. The four stages in CONTEST are- Prevention; Pursuance;
Protection and preparation (Lain, 2016). The stages had been developed for the purpose of
reduction of the threats and the exposures that are existing in any attack. The purpose of the
first stage is to prevent or stop individuals from supporting any kind of activity related to
terrorism (Malik et al. 2017). The prevention strategies can be seen as including countering
any ideologies that support terrorism, and to challenge those individuals who promote such
ideologies and to support the people who can be observed as being vulnerable to the risk to
become radicalized. The aim of the second stage is to detect, prosecute or disrupt any terrorist
activity for stopping it. The third stage ensures that the agencies strengthen the protections
against any kind of terrorist attacks by focussing on the concepts of increasing security in the
border areas, in the infrastructure of the nation, increased security measures in transport
systems and any public place. The fourth stage ensures proper mitigation of the impact that a
terrorist attack might have in situations where the attacks are impossible to be prevented.
As terrorism is a global phenomenon therefore only national strategies cannot ensure
complete cure from the problem (Haigh 2018). The contributions of the common citizens are

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also required. Following the ‘see something, say something’ scheme of the United States,
which encourages the people to report any suspicious activities of terrorism that they have
witnessed, the United Kingdom can also be seen as developing the scheme named Action
Counters Terrorism (Awan, Spiller and Whiting 2019). The ACT aims for encouraging the
citizens to be reporting any suspicious activities they think can lead to terrorism to the police
at the earliest.
Conclusion
In this paper a brief discussion has been done about terrorism and its effects. Terrorism can
be described as the use of violence in a systematic manner which would create fear in the
population with the sole objective of bringing about any specific objective of the politics.
Terrorists can be defined as individuals using violence against the civilians for any particular
political purpose in a unlawful way. In this paper discussion has also been done about the
crimes that the terrorist used for collecting funds for their organisations. There are various
ways by which a terrorism organisation can collect funds for pursuing their agenda. Terrorist
often use criminal activities like white collar crimes or money laundering to collect funds for
continuing the terrorist organisations. The paper further provided the readers with the efforts
taken by the government and intelligence agencies to curb terrorism. Counter terrorism can
be described as the tactics techniques and strategies used by the government, military or any
other law enforcement for combating or preventing terrorism. To combat terrorism the
government use information and intelligence. The law enforcement agencies in the United
Kingdom can be observed as receiving information from four primary sources- external
primary sources, external secondary sources, internal primary sources and internal secondary
sources. Various legislations can be seen as being in place for such information collection
and use. The paper can be seen as discussing about the drawbacks of such legislations as

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well. In this context the paper also discussed about the use of information and intelligence by
the agencies to counter the terrorists. Strategies like National Security Strategy, Counter
Terrorism Strategy and Action Counters Terrorism scheme are taken by the British
Government. As terrorism is a global phenomenon therefore only national strategies cannot
ensure the complete cure from the problem. The contributions of the common citizens are
also required.

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Reference
Awan, I., Spiller, K. and Whiting, A., 2019. The Development of UK Counter-Terrorism
Policy and Legislation. In Terrorism in the Classroom (pp. 25-42). Palgrave Pivot, Cham.
Blakemore, B., 2016. Extremism, counter-terrorism and policing. Routledge.
Combs, C.C., 2017. Terrorism in the twenty-first century. Routledge.
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Data Protection Act 2018
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Malik, N., Wilson, T., Orton, K. and Rushchenko, J., 2017. Understanding CONTEST: the
foundation and the future.
Newburn, T. (2017). Criminology: third edition. Oxon: Routledge

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