Enforcing Knowledge Management in Law Enforcement Agencies

 

The world is interconnected and rightly called global village. The interconnectedness brings out a lot of advantages in terms of culture, communication, and economy. However, this closely interconnected system also has some pitfalls. Certain people or groups like terrorists, criminals find it easy to stay under radar, travel across nations and action their nefarious activities. Because of difficulty in detecting their actions or intentions beforehand, it sometimes becomes difficult to prevent their actions and their consequences.

Knowledge symmetry or seamless flow of knowledge between various law enforcement agencies globally is the only way to provide optimal law enforcement. The work of law enforcement officers is intensive, and they need a large amount of knowledge to perform their duties efficiently. This implies that effective knowledge sharing is a critical factor in policing success.

  1. A well knowledge management (KM) system can easily connect law enforcement agencies to access information from global non-policing agencies when dealing with criminal issues. It becomes easier to search at the tip of a finger all pertaining records of an individual like insurance, travel history, criminal history, education, so on and so forth. It saves so much time and effort which would be otherwise required.
  2. Globally connected law enforcement knowledge management systems can make co-ordination and transitions across borders seamless and improve security issues across borders.
  3. When law enforcement officers retire, they take along all their experience, knowledge and learnings which is then lost from the system. An effective knowledge management system can capture the insights and knowledge from the outgoing officers which can benefits the current and future officers who can definitely use the wealth of experience to perform their roles in an efficient manner.

Let’s see below some of the key recommendations to bring in the knowledge management culture for greater good of the officers and the nations as a whole.

  1. Let the culture flow from the top. Proactive knowledge sharing from management will definitely encourage a knowledge sharing culture.
  2. Making KM sharing and processes a part of the new joiners training will help in making it a part of the working culture of officers.
  3. Regular capturing, synthesizing, and timely dissemination of knowledge from multiple sources will optimize the agencies’ ability to access and identify criminal threats.
  4. Effective system to capture and retain both tacit and explicit knowledge for easy access of officers will make it easy to adapt and make officers more productive and efficient.
  5. Making system intra-organizations and cross-agency compatible for seamless flow of information will enable officers to action quickly and prevent crimes and criminals.

I would like to conclude by saying that Knowledge management is essential in law enforcement agencies for enabling officers who learn from experience and insights that guides their behavior, and better prepare them to combat crimes and make world a secure place to live.

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