Criminal Justice System Lessons Learned Post 9/11
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of interagency collaboration in the criminal justice system, the changes that were made and lessons learned following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the wake of the events that followed the 9/11 attacks many problems were revealed within the criminal justice system, especially those affecting the law enforcement community. One of those problems was the lack of interaction between the police departments and other local/state law enforcement with the federal law enforcement agencies. Local law enforcement agencies are the primary responders to any incident of crime or terror, therefore developing a better interagency collaboration in order to share information is essential in order to prevent future attacks. Prior to the 9/11 attacks many of the agencies believed in keeping information within their own realm due to protocols and security clearances. These criminal justice agencies each had pieces to a puzzle, but because these agencies never worked together, those pieces would never be put together to reveal the bigger picture. The 9/11 events revealed the lack of interaction and set about a positive change that would impact the way the criminal justice system approached their problem solving. One of those changes was the reorganization of the federal law enforcement agencies, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration (Brown, 2007). Another positive change was the reorganization of federal, state, and local governments for the purpose of increased information intelligence and sharing. Despite the positives changes that occurred to improve interagency collaboration, there were several challenges to the process (Unlu et al., 2012). One of those challenges is the ability to