MARITINE SECURITY INITIATIVE

The task of implementing effective domestic preparedness strategies, along with the increased threat of terrorism, has raised some serious concerns for law enforcement agencies.  It is a challenge for law enforcement agencies alone to provide absolute security for our Maritime Ports and Critical Infrastructure.

To reinforce our law enforcement matrix, and address the evolving trends in terrorism and other criminal activities, within our maritime communities, the New Jersey State Police Marine Services Bureau (MSB) has developed the Maritime Security Initiative (MSI).  The Maritime Security Initiative recognizes current trends and increases port security through the development of maritime intelligence.

The MSI program relies on the development of cooperative community and corporate partnerships.  These partnerships are essential to support our intelligence gathering program. The initiative involves the proactive pursuit of intelligence via a systematic outreach program involving those associated with our waterways.

Increasingly intelligence is identifying the growing threats of small boats being used as Vessel Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED). They are maneuverable, fast, inexpensive and afford the ability to hide among other vessels making their detection difficult. Several thousand commercial and private vessels transient New Jersey's waterways on a yearly basis. Many of our generating plants, critical infrastructure, and ports are readily accessible by water, making an undetected VBIED attack difficult to prevent.

Security vulnerability and assessment experts report that 75% of terrorist attacks are successful, and 95% of suicide terrorist attacks succeed. It is unrealistic to expect law enforcement to intervene and prevent this type of attack once it is operationally initiated. The time to intervene is during pre-operational site probes or surveys, when they are exhibiting suspicious indicators.

The Maritime Security Initiative empowers the local, private, and corporate waterfront community with the knowledge and ability to assist law enforcement by identifying criminal and terrorist behaviors. To successfully combat terrorism and criminal activity, law enforcement relies on the active involvement of our waterfront community partners. 

As citizens, we can often distinguish between legitimate tourists and boaters, and suspicious activity.  There are thousands of recreational boaters, anglers, and many public and private marinas throughout our state.  All of these venues must be tapped to generate intelligence.  All of these partners are in the process of being trained to assist with identifying and reporting criminal/terrorist behavior.

The overwhelming majority of people who frequent our waterfronts are law abiding citizens.

However, they are also used by criminals, and terrorists to facilitate their activities.  Individuals engaged in criminal or terrorist activity will often display patterns of behavior, and engage in specific actions which are intentionally designed to conceal, disguise, or divert attention away from their true criminal intentions.

Our waterfront partners can now report suspicious activities directly to the New Jersey State Police using the internet.  Within the security of their home, the public can submit tips and leads, using the NJSP Marine Services Bureau webpage, www.njsp.org/maritime.  These tips and leads, are analyzed and disseminated to the appropriate level of law enforcement, either municipal, county, state or federal, to be pursued.  The NJSP Marine Services Bureau website, also affords the public the ability to submit generic boating questions, directly to the staff of the Marine Services Bureau. 

An additional benefit is the gleaning of investigative leads to solving other land and water-based crimes, the All Crimes/All Hazards theory. Intelligence is being developed to aid in criminal mischief, burglary and thefts, narcotics, pollution, and other criminal activity investigations.

All of the intelligence and developed contacts are added to the Statewide Intelligence Management System (SIMS) database. SIMS satisfies our law enforcement concerns of "sharing intelligence," and manages all of our data.