Intelligence-led policing (ILP) is a policing model built around the assessment and management of risk. Intelligence officers serve as guides to operations, rather than operations guiding intelligence.

Calls for intelligence-led policing originated in the 1990s, both in Britain and in the United States. In the U.S., Mark Riebling's 1994 book Wedge - The Secret War between the FBI and CIA spotlighted the conflict between law enforcement and intelligence, and urged cops to become "more like spies." Intelligence-led policing gained considerable momentum globally following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. It is now advocated by the leading police associations in North America and the UK.

Although intelligence-led policing builds on earlier paradigms, such as community policing, problem-oriented policing, and the partnership model of policing, it originated as a rejection of the "reactive" focus on crime of community policing, with calls for police to spend more time employing informants and surveillance to combat recidivist offenders.

Recently,^[when?] intelligence-led policing has undergone a 'revisionist' expansion to allow incorporation of reassurance and neighbourhood policing.

Prior to intelligence-led policing, a responsive strategy was the main method of policing. However, as crime was perceived to outgrow police resources in the UK in the early 1990s, there was a demand gap, and a desire from police forces and policy-makers for a new strategy that would more efficiently use the resources available at the time

Early development of intelligence-led policing took place in the UK. It was perceived that police were spending too much time responding to specific incidents, and not tackling the problem of repeat offenders. Therefore, reports by the Audit Commission in 1993 and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in 1997 advocated increased use of intelligence, surveillance and informants to target recidivist offenders, so that police could be more effective in fighting crime. The call was quickly taken up by some police forces, particularly the Kent Constabulary. Intelligence led policing was not a major proponent of policing styles until the September 11th terrorist attacks. Prior to these attacks the majority of all branches of the government would often not divulge any information to each other. The main assumptions of this theory can be described by Ratcliffe's 3i format. As shown by the figure below,the three I's call for close cooperation between police chiefs and intelligence analysts in order to facilitate a strategy that will impact the criminal environment.

Figure 1. 3i Model of Intelligence-led Policing adapted from Ratcliffe

Police efforts in the homeland security mission will be changing as the main threats begin to change. "the principal threats are local, selfgenerating, and self-directed. If there are direct connections overseas, these are likely initiated by local actors. This isn't intended to minimize the international threat, but a caution that local threats will increase”. “It has become plausible that a small group of non-state actors, such as terrorists, could launch a serious attack against the nation using weapons of mass destruction, or even small arms, as in Mumbai. These individuals might live in a local U.S. community or halfway across the world, yet plan and execute a massive and violent attack against a local U.S. community”. This change will effect the intelligence that is collected by police departments.