Governing the possible: a blueprint for imagination in law-enforcement ecosystem
Imagination (human imagination) is a MUST DEVELOP in law enforcement agencies. Pre-empt adversarial innovation lawfully. If not:crime adapts faster than policing, public security and trust erode.
Facing adversaries who weaponise emerging technologies faster than institutions can adapt, policing needs a governed capability that turns weak signals into lawful, operational choices. An Imagination Department within a law enforcement organisation institutionalises adversarial creativity - red-teaming, threatcasting, rapid prototyping - while embedding evidence-based methods and rights-by-design safeguards. The result is earlier disruption of harms, safer doctrine and procurement, and decisions that remain effective, proportionate, and publicly legitimate; the alternative is response lag, avoidable damage, and rising legal exposure. What if not ?
by Christopher H. CORDEY
#PublicSafety #AdversarialCreativity #Threatcasting #EvidentialIntegrity #LawEnforcement #Police #Foresight #Imagination
Context
Law-enforcement agencies operate in an environment where adversarial innovation often outpaces institutional adaptation. Offenders and hostile actors rapidly appropriate emerging technologies - synthetic media (deepfakes), voice cloning, drone-enabled logistics, crime-as-a-service marketplaces, 3D-printed firearms, encrypted and anonymised communication channels - and combine them with sophisticated social-engineering and financial infrastructures. These shifts are non-linear: new methods diffuse globally within days; toolkits lower the expertise threshold for exploitation; and cross-border coordination complicates attribution and prosecution. Traditional linear planning, classic scenario sets and other evidence base foresight methods are necessary but insufficient: they tend to stabilise assumptions just as external realities destabilise them.
Simultaneously, democratic and legal constraints are tightening. European and international frameworks - including practical guidance for AI in policing and the Council of Europe’s AI Convention - raise the bar for necessity, proportionality, transparency, explainability, and accountability in any data-intensive or algorithmic policing practice. In this setting, the question is not whether to “innovate,” but how to imagine and test futures responsibly - anticipating misuse, pressure-testing concepts before deployment, and building legitimacy by design (Europol, n.d.; EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2020; Council of Europe, 2024).
Many jurisdictions have already institutionalised partial responses. Europol’s Innovation Lab and the INTERPOL Innovation Centre provide horizon scanning, observatories, and pilot pathways. National policing colleges set future operating environments and doctrine refresh cycles. Universities and defence organisations run threatcasting and red-team programs.
What remains under-provided inside many police organisations is a dedicated, governed capability for imagination: a unit that invents, simulates, and ethically stress-tests future tactics - before adversaries or vendors force choices in the field - while ensuring rights-preserving, evidentially sound outcomes
Why an imagination department ?
Law enforcement now faces adversaries who innovate faster than institutions can adapt; an Imagination Department lawfully channels adversarial creativity to turn weak signals into operational prototypes, pre-emptive counter-measures, and rights-by-design safeguards. Without it, response lags, avoidable harm grows, and legal and legitimacy risks escalate.
There are three basic rationale.
(1) Adversaries already weaponise imagination
Criminals and hostile actors do not wait for policy cycles. They project forward, hypothesise weaknesses, and trial new combinations - deepfake extortion scripts, voice-clone vishing, smuggling drones, synthetic identities - then iterate on law-enforcement responses. A formal Imagination Department institutionalises the same proactive stance: adversarial creativity under rules of law. It becomes the organisation’s internal “red cell,” generating extreme-but-plausible futures and deriving counter-measures that can be codified into doctrine, training, and procurement criteria (Financial Times; Europol, 2022).
(2) Complementing - not duplicating - foresight and innovation
Observatories scan; labs pilot; strategy teams prioritise. The missing function is stress-testing: turning signals into operationally credible threat narratives, building tangible prototypes (mock UIs, scripts, exercise injects), and testing evidential chains before any tool or tactic touches an investigation. The Imagination Department sits adjacent to the Innovation Lab and INTERPOL’s Centre: it pulls their outputs into action (threatcasting, design fiction, red-teaming), closes the loop with field units, and feeds back concrete requirements to procurement and policy (Europol, n.d.; INTERPOL, n.d.; Threatcasting Lab).
(3) Anticipatory safeguards for rights and legitimacy
Policing must remain effective and legitimate. Many high-risk technologies (biometrics, large-scale analytics) demand ex-ante assessments and traceable rights-by-design controls. An imagination unit embeds Fundamental-Rights Impact Assessments (FRIAs), explainability notes, and red lines into the earliest ideation stages - before sunk costs or path dependencies make change hard. This keeps experimentation within lawful boundaries, protects chain-of-custody and evidential integrity, and sustains public trust (EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2020; Europol, 2024/2025; Council of Europe, 2024).
What could be an imagination department ?
An Imagination Department within a law-enforcement organisation could look like this: a lean, cross-functional unit that systematically converts weak signals into operational options through adversarial imagination, threatcasting, rapid prototyping, and rights-by-design review.
Potential Mission
To explore, prototype, and ethically pressure-test future policing concepts - before adversaries or markets force them upon us - so that operational choices remain effective, lawful, explainable, and publicly legitimate.
3 core functions - non exhaustive - with tangible outputs
Adversarial imagination & Red-Teaming
Systematically invent and simulate plausible criminal uses of emerging tech, then derive lawful counter-measures.
Outputs: attack trees, red-team playbooks, counter-tactic briefs, evidential-chain checklists.
Benchmark: France’s Red Team Défense adapted to civilian and rights-preserving constraints.Threatcasting & design fiction for policing
Convene operators, digital forensics, legal advisors, community representatives, industry, and academia to construct 5–10-year threat narratives with concrete “signposts” and tactical backcasts.
Outputs: threatcasting reports, signpost registries, decision memos.
Benchmark: ASU Threatcasting Lab collaborations with law-enforcement partners.Operational Narrative Prototyping
Build low-cost storyboards, mock interfaces, and red-cell videos that simulate the whole workflow (from first contact to court), including chain-of-custody and officer safety.
Outputs: prototype artefacts, table-top and field-exercise injects, comms protocols.
Expected benefits for law enforcement
There are many potential benefits, but the primary benefit is most probably serious-harm reduction - earlier detection and disruption of emerging threats that prevents injuries, saves lives, and preserves evidential integrity. Find other.
Serious-harm reduction: earlier identification of emerging risks reduces fatalities and injuries (e.g., fentanyl analogues, deepfake-enabled extortion, drone drops).
Crime prevention & disruption uplift: faster detection of new MOs (Motus Operandi); quicker disruption of networks; improved clearance rates in targeted categories.
Officer safety & wellbeing: anticipates high-risk situations, lowering injuries and lost time.
Operational efficiency: better prioritisation of patrols and investigations; fewer “zombie” pilots; shorter queues and cycle times.
Major-incident readiness: improved response/containment for disasters, cyber events, and public order operations.
Legal & compliance risk reduction: anticipates AI/biometrics/data rules; avoids unlawful deployments and litigation.
Technology & procurement de-risking: stage-gated trials reduce stranded assets and vendor lock-in; clearer total cost of ownership.
Interagency coordination: shared futures picture aligns partners and reduces duplication.
Community trust & legitimacy: bias/privacy pitfalls surfaced early; fewer complaints and appeals; higher voluntary cooperation.
Conclusion
A rigorously governed Imagination Department / Cell, that could be within a foresight department, gives a law-enforcement organisation the means to think like an adversary - lawfully, to translate foresight into operationally credible prototypes, and to institutionalise rights-preserving innovation. By separating creative red-teaming from rights oversight, integrating with existing observatories, and grounding every concept in evidential and legal standards, the unit closes the gap between signals and safe, effective action.
In sum, a modern police foresight department can no longer treat imagination as optional: it must blend imaginative red-teaming, and other methods with evidence-based insights, legal safeguards, and operational testing to anticipate threats before they materialize. Only this fusion delivers proportionate, effective, and publicly legitimate security.
References (APA 7th)
College of Policing. (2019/2020). Future Operating Environment 2040 (report and user guide).
Council of Europe. (2024). Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
EU Agency for Fundamental Rights. (2020). Getting the future right: Artificial intelligence and fundamental rights.
Europol. (2022). Facing reality? Law enforcement and the challenge of deepfakes.
Europol. (n.d.). Innovation Lab.
Europol. (2024/2025). AI and policing—practical guidance and risk themes.
INTERPOL. (n.d.). INTERPOL Innovation Centre.
Red Team Défense / Agence de l’innovation de défense. (2019–2025). Découvrir la Red Team.
Threatcasting Lab, Arizona State University. (2019–2024). Threatcasting reports & methodology.