The Effects of Top-Down Management on Law Enforcement Information and Intelligence Sharing: A Qualitative Phenomenological Study

The problem addressed in this study is that currently published research has not explored the lived experiences of local-level law enforcement regarding the effectiveness of top-down, federal level management support to information sharing on homeland security threats. Despite the criticality of law enforcement intelligence in the protection of homeland security, law enforcement must surmount greater challenges than the nationally focused intelligence community in conducting information sharing, including privacy stipulations on U.S. persons information and a lack of consistent resources to unify local law enforcement units nation-wide (Brown, 2017; Hollywood et al., 2015; National Archives and Records Administration, 1981). This qualitative phenomenological study explored the research question “What are the lived experiences of local-level law enforcement regarding the effectiveness of top-down, federal level management support to information sharing on homeland security threats?” The purpose of this research was to study the way local-level law enforcement perceive support from top-down, federal level leadership in support of information sharing on homeland security threats, by utilizing semi-structured interview data from law enforcement officials with over ten years of experience. This study identified six themes through the collected data, including communication, connecting the dots, complexity of unifying local agencies, budget, clearances and classifications, and genuine care for protecting the public. These themes show that local level law enforcement perceives weaknesses in the way federal management supports local law enforcement information sharing for homeland security threats, and improvements are needed to ensure critical threat information is not overlooked.