Local Homeland Security Strategy

The International Association of Chief's of Police (IACP) has just released a nine-page report entitled From Hometown Security to Homeland Security -- IACP's Principles for a Locally Designed and Nationally Coordinated Homeland Security Strategy. The report, the first in a series based on the IACP's November 2004 project called the Taking Command Initiative, identified what the IACP considers to be a fundamental flaw in the national homeland security strategy. The IACP's perceived flaw is that the national policy was developed without the advice, expertise, or consent of public safety organizations at the state, local, and tribal level.

The IACP's report linked above identifies five principles it believes must for the basis for and be incorporated into an effective homeland security strategy.

1. All terrorism is local.
2. Prevention is paramount.
3. Hometown security is homeland security.
4. Homeland security strategies must be coordinated nationally, not federally.
5. The importance of bottom-up engineering, the diversity of the state, tribal, and local public safety community & noncompetitive collaboration.

In the future, the IACP plans to undertake a series of additional projects to realize its objective for a nationally coordinated homeland security strategy.