What Are Police Collaboration Agreements?
Law enforcement is a multifaceted service that requires a wide range of skills, equipment and knowledge to be effective. To best serve the communities they protect, police agencies have the option of forming collaboration agreements with other agencies in their area.
Collaboration agreements, sometimes known as mutual aid agreements, are cooperative arrangements between two or more police agencies. These agreements are designed to allow these agencies to share resources such as personnel, equipment, technology, tactics and knowledge with one another to maximize their law enforcement capabilities and to more effectively work together to prevent and solve crimes.
What makes police collaboration agreements so effective is the fact that they allow various police agencies to share their unique specialties with one another. For example, a police department that excels in counterterrorism can provide assistance and training to a neighboring department that is less familiar with this type of security threats. This may include training in identifying potential threats, how to make use of various equipment, tactics for controlling crowds and intelligence sharing between departments.
Collaboration agreements can also provide equipment that is usually too expensive or simply unavailable for a small police department. For instance, if typically underserved police agency needs access to a helicopter, a nearby city with a properly outfitted rotor wing may offer to share its aircraft as needed . This type of resource sharing is incredibly beneficial to both agencies. It allows the receiving agency to access much-needed equipment without adding any extra costs to its budget. Meanwhile, the lending agency can enhance its capabilities without needing to stretch its own resources too thin. The fact that the police department lending the equipment already owns it means that there is no additional cost for maintenance, troubleshooting or any potential repairs.
Additionally, by collaborating on resources, agencies can avoid duplicating their efforts. This means a police department can better use its budget by ensuring that it does not spend money on resources that their neighbor department has. For example, if one police jurisdiction needs to purchase a sonar system for waterway scans, a neighboring police department may rent theirs out for a relatively small fee. Both agencies benefit from each other’s efforts and save money in the process. This is incredibly important when budget restraints are looming.
Of course, the biggest plus for collaborating police agencies is knowing they have extra support on hand when they really need it. Whether a natural disaster or a massive manmade incident such as a terrorist attack threatens the community, having the assistance of other cooperative police agencies can be a major blessing.
Essential Elements of Collaboration Agreements
An effective police collaboration agreement must be built on a foundation of trust and clear communication between the parties. Although police officers and police departments have sworn themselves to uphold the law, they are not above the law themselves. All involved must adhere to their respective oaths and the terms of the agreement. Essential components of an effective police collaboration agreement should include provisions for mutual goals and collaboration, clear communication channels; protocols for joint action; local, state, and federal authority; geographic boundaries; and resolution of disputes among the parties.
Advantages of Collaboration Agreements
Collaborative agreements between police departments are tailored to the specific needs of the agreements’ signatories, and customarily range from modest information sharing to highly developed cross-jurisdictional task forces with significant cross-training and resources. The agreements can be unflinchingly efficient: in Poughkeepsie, New York, for example, the addition of two town officers to the city department doubled its manpower for investigations, patrols, and a much-needed community policing presence. In Westfield, New Jersey, the creation of the Union County Crime Task Force brought together the various police departments of 21 municipalities to pursue all manner of narcotics charges throughout the county. Some collaborative agreements are relatively informal, such as the agreement forged between Erie County and Niagara County in Western New York in May of 2014, to share information with the FBI about a series of burglaries in bars, serving as a needed countermeasure to a recent uptick in burglaries while permitting resource sharing without the costs and headaches of training new officers. However, those agreements offer little in the way of true collaboration, and reflective of that jurisdictional orientation, whereas the broad and multi-faceted agreements transparently highlight the often-unnoticed effort of communities to identify and resolve problems before they escalate into regional threats.
Cooperative strategies and enhancements of inter-agency infrastructure carry high utility in a post-September 11th world, not only in their efficiencies, but also in their ability to save federal and state dollars that might otherwise have been spent on an increased federal presence in a local jurisdiction. "After 9/11, the federal government made the decision to try to do more homeland security at the local level and send fewer federal agents and officers to investigate those matters," said Jeffrey Smidt, a former Chief Counsel of the National Security Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, ‘Most federal agents are hired today with the expectation that they will work cooperatively with state and local law enforcement." Cooperative policing reduces the problems of federal mandates, bureaucracy, and intervention.
Collaboration Agreements: Common Challenges
Despite the many benefits that collaboration agreements can provide for multiple law enforcement agencies, often times crafting these agreements and then executing them can prove to be a difficult task. Jurisdictional conflicts can arise when two or more law enforcement agencies decide to jointly investigate a particular matter. Such conflicts become aggravated if both agencies do not wish to relinquish authority over a case, and are unsure where to vest jurisdiction. As a result, some agencies may refuse to collaborate on a case altogether.
Similarly, funding problems can arise when one agency seeks a grant award for a project to be jointly undertaken with one or more other agencies. There is no uniform rule across the board for addressing what percentage of the award is to be distributed to which law enforcement agencies. If the grant award between any of the partners in the project is insufficient to cover all expenses for the project, including expenses for participating partner agencies, disputes may arise as to how the grant funds should be allocated.
Procedural differences between the collaborating law enforcement agencies can also pose a challenge when executing a collaboration agreement. For instance, one agency may have a standing policy or procedure that requires a minimum number of officers assigned to a case at any one time. For another agency, this procedure may not be necessary. These differences can create difficult issues for both independent and investigative teams in a joint investigation.
There is no definitive formula for what to do when these, among other, problems arise. In fact, many of these problems can only be resolved through cooperation and compromise. Consultant firms empty their coffers yearly seeking to resolve such problems on behalf of law enforcement agencies involved in an investigative or criminal case. None of these consultants can guarantee success in resolving these problems however, simply because circumstances can change day-by-day, a rule which is especially true in the law enforcement field.
Police Cooperation Agreements: Noteworthy Examples
Many city governments in the United States have enacted police collaboration agreements, as much due to the effort to fight crime as the effort to foster increased relations with the communities that they serve. Consider that in 2015, 37 percent of the 50 largest police departments in the United States, which are part of a national law enforcement program, had collaborative policing agreements with one or more municipalities. Examples of such outcomes would be the following:
St. Louis, Missouri. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the University City School District in St. Louis County, Missouri want to ensure greater safety for elementary and secondary school students. They formed the "University City School District Police Cooperation Communication Agreement," which came into force on Jan. 1 , 2016. The two law enforcement agencies sought improved communication so as to address the growing number of school-related incidents. The relationship is designed to deliver intelligence and crime prevention tools while enhancing campus safety. It includes a two-way radio link in the U. City College Police Station.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Police Department and the University of Pennsylvania Department of Public Safety have formed a comprehensive crime-fighting relationship. A 2006 agreement already existed between the two agencies, and was updated on October 1, 2014. The agreement details the four areas of police cooperation, which include cross-jurisdiction CInjuries, coordinated emergency arms response systems, victim services resources and community policing. The communications systems between the departments are now unified.
Cleveland, Ohio and Cleveland Heights, Ohio. These two contiguous communities have had joint police years for many years and have multiple mutual aid compacts that can be activated in the event of civil disorder or environmental emergencies.
Creating a Strong Collaboration Agreement
A comprehensive police collaboration agreement should be developed through a six step process: Identify Stakeholders. Your agreement should identify the parties involved in the agreement at the outset. You may want to consider who and how these parties will be involved throughout the process of negotiating and executing the collaboration agreement. Explore Shared Goals. Meet with participating law enforcement agencies to identify key goals. This is an opportunity to develop a list of priorities to achieve throughout the first year of the collaboration agreement. This step is best conducted with agency personnel who will be involved throughout the duration of the collaboration agreement. Research Applicable Laws and Regulations. State and federal laws apply to police collaborative programs. Examples where laws may apply include the law enforcement Mutual Aid Act, the Code of Virginia and the Virginia Constitution. Agencies should research applicable laws to ensure the collaborative agreement is in compliance. Failure to comply with the law could lead to the invalidation of the agreement and bring legal challenges. Be Transparent. Once the terms are finalized, the agencies should prepare to be transparent and provide a public notice of the intended agreement. This is an important step that is often overlooked. Transparency is vital to the police/community partnership and to ensure public trust in their local police agencies. Develop the Collaboration Agreement. In addition to addressing the goals identified earlier in the process, a collaboration agreement should detail risk assessments, agreements concerning workload sharing, agency liabilities and duties, dispute resolution processes, auditing processes, technology issues, incident reporting and data sharing, a plan to recruit and train personnel, an executive summary, participant signatures and other types of addenda as needed. Evaluate the Agreement. After an agreed upon period of time, such as one year, the collaboration agreement should be analyzed to determine its effectiveness with regard to the stated goals and any unintended consequences they may have had on the community. Some agencies have suggested that the assessment measures first established during the development process should be re-visited to measure the success of the collaboration agreement’s goals.
The Future of Police Collaborations
Collaboration agreements between police agencies are important tools in the global fight against crime. With increasing levels of transnational crime and terrorism, the world’s law enforcement agencies will need to work together more and more closely.
Analysis of law enforcement data is increasingly being carried out between jurisdictions, through the use of collaborative plans. Technology-based platforms such as e-mail, video conferencing and online platforms such as Webex are being employed. There are significant budgets being spent in relation to IT infrastructure in most common law jurisdictions; inferring that we may see more use of technology in future collaborative plans.
We are also likely to see the rise of a number of large-scale partnership-type plans between common law jurisdictions which will deal with more of a "general approach" to policing as well as all of the other plans for the keys areas of policing.
It is diffused thinking that future collaborative plans will be more focused on the analysis and the tackling of the threat and risk posed by terrorists and serious organised crime . This will obviously be linked to the sharing of information between individuals and organisations, unlike most other collaborative plans that rely more on generalities in terms of the sharing of a resource and the risk is not so high.
Moving forward, we are more likely to see advisory agreements become much more specific in terms of the way that the advisory boards operate, how people are appointed and removed. Indicators and performance data may also be incorporated into these advisory plans.
Other aspects of law enforcement/services will become more virtual, such as communications, reporting and training which will be based on more sophisticated IT platforms and models. In terms of future cooperation plans, we can expect to see large-scale agreements between jurisdictions which are more general in nature, dealing with principles, concepts, types of crime, and outlining powers of those charged with maintaining internal security.