New Perspectives in Policing 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J a N u a r y 2 0 1 1 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm 

David Weisburd and Peter Neyroud 

Executive Session on Policing and 


Public Safety
 

This is one in a series of papers that will be published as a result of the Executive Session on 


Policing and Public Safety. 


Harvard’s Executive Sessions are a convening 


of individuals of independent standing who take 


joint responsibility for rethinking and improving 


society’s responses to an issue. Members are 


selected based on their experiences, their reputation for thoughtfulness and their potential for 


helping to disseminate the work of the Session. 


In the early 1980s, an Executive Session on Policing 


helped resolve many law enforcement issues of 


the day. It produced a number of papers and 


concepts that revolutionized policing. Thirty years 


later, law enforcement has changed and NIJ and 


Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government are 


again collaborating to help resolve law enforcement issues of the day. 


Learn more about the Executive Session on 

Policing and Public Safety at: 

NIJ’s website: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/
 

law-enforcement/executive-sessions/welcome.htm
 

Harvard’s website: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/
 

criminaljustice/executive_sessions/policing.htm
 

National Institute of Justice 

Summary 

We believe that a radical reformation of the role 

of science in policing will be necessary if policing 

is to become an arena of evidence-based policies. 

We also think that the advancement of science in 

policing is essential if police are to retain public 

support and legitimacy, cope with recessionary 

budget reductions, and if the policing industry 

is to alleviate the problems that have become a 

part of the policing task. In this paper, we outline 

a proposal for a new paradigm that changes the 

relationship between science and policing. This 

paradigm demands that the police adopt and 

advance evidence-based policy and that universities become active participants in the everyday 

world of police practice. But it also calls for a shift 

in ownership of police science from the universities to police agencies. Such ownership would 

facilitate the implementation of evidence-based 

practices and policies in policing and would 

change the fundamental relationship between 

research and practice. It would also increase the 

prestige and credibility of police science in the 

universities. We think that bringing the universities into police centers and having the police take 

ownership of police science will improve policing 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 | New Perspectives in Policing 

and ensure its survival in a competitive world of 

provision of public services. 

Introduction: The Disconnect Between 

Science and Policing 

Over the last two decades, the police have innovated at a rapid pace, developing new practices 

and policies that have reformed and changed the 

policing industry (Weisburd and Braga, 2006a). 

The police, who were once considered conservative and resistant to change, have become a model 

for criminal justice systems experimentation and 

innovation. The police have pioneered the development of new relationships between criminal justice 

and the public in community policing. They have 

crafted new strategies of crime control, introducing 

problem-oriented policing, hot spots policing, pulling levers policing and a host of other new strategic 

innovations, including the introduction of new 

technologies such as automatic number/license 

plate reading, automatic fingerprinting systems and 

DNA testing. The police also have experimented 

with new management methods in programs such 

as Compstat, and have integrated the new technologies into crime prevention and control through 

innovative crime analysis approaches such as intelligence-led policing (Ratcliffe, 2008) and with new 

methods of describing data such as computerized 

crime mapping. 

In their efforts to innovate and change over the last 

two decades, the police have often enlisted the help 

of academics and researchers. In the development 

of Compstat in New York City, for example, academic research not only helped to define why new 

approaches were necessary (Bratton, 1998; Bratton 

and Knobler, 1998), but police scholars like George 

Kelling were enlisted to help identify and refine 

promising police practices. Intelligence-led policing is strongly linked to academics who have called 

for use of advanced statistical and analytic tools 

in dealing with crime problems, and many police 

agencies have sought to enlist researchers to help 

them develop such tools (Peterson, 2005; Ratcliffe, 

2002; 2008). Hot spots policing has its origins in 

basic academic research, and has been the subject 

of systematic scientific evaluation (Braga, 2001; 

Sherman and Weisburd, 1995; Weisburd, 2005). 

More generally, police-researcher partnerships 

have been a prominent feature of the policing landscape over the last two decades, and it is no longer 

surprising to see researchers in police agencies. 

But having noted the advances in the relationship 

between research and practice in policing, we think 

it reasonable to say that despite progress, there is 

still a fundamental disconnect between science 

and policing. By “science” we mean the broad 

array of methods and technologies that police 

have confronted over the last half century. This 

includes advances in forensics, such as DNA testing, digital fingerprinting and other technologies 

meant to improve detection and identification. It 

also includes social science, which often has been 

neglected by the police, but has begun to play 

an increasingly important role over the last few 

decades both in terms of advancing crime analysis 

and in evaluating and assessing traditional police 

practices and new innovations in police strategies. 

By science we also mean the advancement of the 

use of scientific models of inquiry such as problemoriented policing. In our paper, we will argue that 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm | 3 

despite the advances made in the use of science in 

policing and in the leadership and management of 

policing, science has yet to move to center stage. 

For example, most police practices are not systematically evaluated, and we still know too little about 

what works and under what conditions in policing 

(National Research Council [NRC], 2004; Weisburd 

and Eck, 2004). Indeed, the evidence-based model 

for developing practices and policies has not been 

widely adopted by police agencies. Today, as in past 

decades, strategies developed in police agencies 

are generally implemented with little reference to 

research evidence. Despite some examples notable 

for the ways in which they depart from conventional 

practice (e.g., hot spots policing; see Weisburd 

and Braga, 2006b), the adoption of police innovation has tended not to have a strong relationship 

with science. 

Evidence-based policing (Sherman, 2002) is not 

the rule, and we think it is not an exaggeration to 

say that most police agencies have little interest 

in using scientific methods to evaluate programs 

and practices. A CEPOL1 study of police research 

in European police agencies found that only five 

out of 30 countries showed a “high” value accorded 

to police science research. In contrast, in nearly 

half the countries, research was seen as being of 

“low” value. The CEPOL study categorized low value 

through two characteristics: little or no demand 

from police for research and police training being 

conducted without reference to scientific or academic knowledge (Hanak and Hofinger, 2005). 

Even police practitioners who are committed to 

using scientific evidence recognize that the present state of practice makes a sophisticated use of 

science difficult in many police agencies (Jaschke 

et al., 2007; Neyroud, 2008; Weatheritt, 1986). Often, 

the introduction of research develops serendipitously — from a “bright idea” of police practitioners 

or researchers rather than through systematic 

development of knowledge about practice. There 

is often little baseline data from which to define an 

innovation, and the outcomes that are examined 

are usually restricted to official data measured 

over very short periods. Most studies of innovations are based on very simplistic methodologies, 

focus on implementation rather than design, and 

often fail to address key issues around transferability or, equally crucial, sustainability (Weatheritt, 

1986). Based on an assessment of whether the idea 

worked, innovative police leaders try to diffuse the 

idea more widely in their agencies, and across agencies, without adequately having researched what 

the real effect was. Despite some notable exemplars, even in many innovative police agencies, 

innovation is more a symbolic activity than a real 

scientific activity. 

Most police agencies do not see science as critical to 

their everyday operations. Science is not an essential part of this police world (Hanak and Hofinger, 

2005; Jaschke et al., 2007). At best it is a luxury that 

can be useful but can also be done without. This can 

be contrasted with fields like medicine and public 

health and, to a lesser extent education, which have 

come to view science as an essential component of 

their efforts to provide public services (Shepherd, 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 | New Perspectives in Policing 

2007). We recognize that the job of policing includes 

unique features that cannot be easily compared to 

other applied sciences, and that models drawn from 

other applied sciences, especially medicine, would 

have to be substantially altered to be appropriate 

for police science. Nonetheless, we think there are 

important lessons to be learned from the penetration of science into other areas of practice. 

For example, can one imagine medicine today 

without the large infrastructure of research that 

stands behind medical practices and public health 

policies? Science is valued both by medical practitioners and by ordinary citizens. Indeed, the 

manipulation of science by large drug companies 

and others that want to increase demand for their 

medical products and services illustrates the value 

of science more generally in medical practice. In 

policing there is — as Jonathan Shepherd, a recent 

recipient of the Stockholm Prize in criminology 

and originally a medical researcher and practitioner has remarked — a problem with the “credibility 

of social science research” (Shepherd, 2007). The 

police do not see social science as essential to the 

work of police agencies. A perfect illustration of this 

can be found in the content of core police education and training. As Janet Chan and her colleagues’ 

study of learning the art of policing illustrates, there 

is little concern with either scientific evidence or 

evidence-based policing (Chan, Devery and Doran, 

2003). In turn, police science is often ignored even 

when the evidence is unambiguous. Take for 

example the continued application of programs 

like Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) 

that have been shown to be ineffective but continue to be supported and implemented by police 

agencies (Clayton, Cattarello and Johnstone, 1996; 

Rosenbaum, 2007; Rosenbaum et al., 1994). 

It is not just the application of social science that 

has missed its mark in policing. A recent National 

Academy of Sciences report on forensics expresses 

significant concern regarding the identification and 

application of science in such areas as fingerprint 

identification and forensic odontology (NRC, 2009). 

The report argued that the police were too willing 

to rely on experts and were not critical enough in 

the evaluation of the underlying science of these 

technologies. It also highlighted that the expert 

scientists were failing to objectively identify the 

underlying weaknesses in the technologies applied. 

And there is also a strong relationship between 

the weaknesses of applying the scientific method 

to forensics and a lack of acceptance of social science in policing. The police, as we discuss below, 

have long been interested in how new technologies can be harnessed to advance police work. Yet, 

the police have seldom sought to evaluate how 

these new technologies affect policing, and more 

importantly whether and how they make the police 

more effective (Morgan and Neyroud, forthcoming). Compare this approach to the adoption of new 

technologies and advances in agriculture and in 

medicine (Gomez and Gomez, 1984; Hunink et al., 

2001; Sunding and Zilberman, 2001; Weinstein et 

al., 2003). These innovations are not adopted widely 

without careful evaluation of their impacts. Such 

scientific evaluation is rare in policing (see Roman 

et al., 2009, for an important exception). 

One consequence of the lack of value of science 

in much of the policing industry is that there is 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm | 5 

little advocacy of such science in government. 

Medical research in the United States receives 

more than $28 billion a year in government funding (National Institutes of Health, 2008). In the 

United Kingdom, medical research receives more 

than £600 million ($981 million) of government 

funding annually (House of Commons, 2008). 

Research on dental care in the United States has a 

federal budget of more than $389 million per year 

(National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial 

Research, 2007). Education research received 

$167 million in the United States in 2009 (U.S. 

Department of Education, 2009). However, the 

National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the primary 

U.S. funder of research in criminal justice, had 

a total budget of only $48 million in fiscal year 

2009 and a budget for research and evaluation (in 

which its policing division is located) of only $13.7 

million.2 The primary funder of crime research in 

the United Kingdom, the Home Office, has a budget for research of only £2 million ($3.3 million) 

(Home Office, 2008). Although there is evidence 

that police associations such as the International 

Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and major 

city chiefs have objected to cuts in research budgets in the past, we do not think that such efforts 

have been consistent or sustained. This can be 

contrasted with the vocal and intense responses 

of the police to reductions in police numbers and 

equipment (Galloway, 2004; Koper, Maguire and 

Moore, 2001). 

We began this paper by focusing on the responsibility of policing to step up its use and ownership 

of science. However, we also think that the academic support for policing has, for the most part, 

failed to meet the needs of policing. Indeed, to 

focus only on the police industry when noting 

the disturbing absence of a large infrastructure for science in policing neglects the failure 

of academic police scholars to make themselves 

relevant to the everyday world of the police. 

Academic research is generally divorced from 

the dynamics of policing. The police operate in a 

reality in which decisions must be made quickly, 

and issues of finance and efficiency can be as 

important as effectiveness. But academic policing 

research generally ignores these aspects of the 

police world, often delivering results long after 

they have relevance, and many times focusing on 

issues that police managers have little interest in. 

Real issues in policing often have little salience 

in the halls of universities. In medicine, clinical 

involvement is seen as an important part of the 

research enterprise, and clinical professors are 

well integrated into medical science. But in policing, academics would be unlikely to advance in 

universities if they nested themselves in police 

agencies to address specific problems such as 

burglary or car theft, and it is rare for clinicians 

to have an active research role in universities.3 As 

such, the everyday problems of policing have little status in the universities. In return, in general, 

the police have tended not to insist on graduate 

and post-graduate educational and professional 

standards, or at least have been discouraged from 

doing so by police unions and other interested 

political forces, and this has distanced the police 

even further from academia (Carter and Sapp, 

1990; Roberg and Bonn, 2004). 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 | New Perspectives in Policing 

We believe that a radical reformation of the role of 

science in policing will be necessary if policing is 

to become an arena of evidence-based policies. We 

also think that the advancement of science in policing is essential if police are to retain public support 

and legitimacy and if the policing industry is to 

alleviate the problems that have become a part of 

the police task. Below, we outline a proposal for an 

approach that would radically alter the landscape 

of science in policing. We begin by assessing the 

current situation and the present role of science in 

police agencies. We note the important advances 

over the last few decades but also the limitations of 

present approaches. Finally, we focus on proposals 

for a new paradigm that changes the relationship 

between science and policing. 

This paradigm demands that the police adopt and 

advance evidence-based policy and that universities become active participants in the everyday 

world of police practice. But it also calls for a shift 

in the ownership of police science from the universities to police agencies. Such a shift would allow 

police science to become an integral part of policing and in this way would enable the development 

of evidence-based approaches for the identification of effective and cost-efficient practices and 

policies. This is essential if the science of policing 

is to provide evidence that its practices improve 

public safety. It is also essential if policing is to gain 

legitimacy and secure investment in an increasingly skeptical world of public services in which 

the competition for public finance is growing ever 

more acute (Ayling, Grabosky and Shearing, 2009). 

The Present Reality: The Failure to Own 

Science and Its Implications 

Science in policing has a long history as it relates to 

forensic evidence and police laboratories for analyzing such evidence. Police focused early on the 

use of blood analysis, gunshot residues and pathology in improving investigations. These tools were 

developed in collaboration with traditional science, 

mostly medical science, and are being continued 

with the development of DNA testing and other 

new investigative approaches.4 Police communications and geographic information systems are other 

areas where science has influenced policing and 

continues to change the nature of police operations. 

And there is no question that technologies related to 

the use of force such as weapons or vests to protect 

police officers have benefited from the involvement 

of science in the policing world. 

In many ways, the use of such traditional science as 

DNA testing and the development of bullet-resistant 

vests and less-lethal weapons provide an important 

model for science in policing. Police agencies have 

embraced these technologies, and the federal government has often provided significant funding for 

their development. Nearly the entire NIJ budget in 

the last few years has reflected such developments, 

with DNA testing being the single most prominent 

federal investment in research that has been carried forward by the agency (NIJ, 2008). The same 

could be said for the U.K. government which 

invested heavily in the “DNA expansion program” 

from 1999 to 2007 (Williams and Johnson, 2008). 

What some might call “hard sciences” — the sciences of engineering, biotechnology and medicine 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm | 7 

— have developed rapidly in policing and have 

been widely accepted by the policing industry. 

At the same time, a recent National Research 

Council (2009) report on the use of forensic evidence suggests that even in this area of science, 

the police have often failed to use an evidencebased model in which standards are developed 

with clear scientific criteria. 

The adoption of technology by police agencies 

has been a type of “black box” — police have 

accepted such technologies but have generally 

not assessed or evaluated them. They bring in 

new equipment or new technologies because 

they work in theory but know little about how 

to use such technologies so that they work best. 

For example, despite major investment in DNA 

testing, there has been to date only one large 

field trial on the impact and cost-effectiveness of 

DNA evidence on police investigations and that 

trial was limited to property crime (Roman et al., 

2009). Do new weapons make policing safer or 

more effective? Will DNA testing be cost-effective 

for the average police agency? Can automobile 

vehicle locator systems be used to increase the 

value of police patrol? These questions, which 

seem so obviously central to the question of 

adoption of new technologies, are seldom examined in policing. The police, in this sense, have 

often been reactive to the technologies that are 

brought to them and have seldom played a role 

in developing those technologies to enhance the 

effectiveness and efficiency of policing. And as 

the NRC report makes clear, in many areas, the 

police have accepted claims of scientific credibility with little skepticism. 

One area where this involvement is greater is 

crime analysis. Most larger police agencies now 

have crime analysis capabilities that include not 

only simple tabular statistical description but 

also more sophisticated algorithms for identifying concentrations and patterns of crime, often 

relying on geographic information systems and 

spatial statistics. Most police chiefs can now 

quickly obtain answers regarding the distribution of crime across time or space, and most have 

come to expect that such data will be used to do 

something about crime. In this sense, science in 

crime analysis has become an integral part of 

police agencies (Weisburd, 2008). In the U.K. in 

particular, a number of partnerships have been 

developed between universities and the police 

as illustrated by the National Intelligence Model 

(Grieve et al., 2008). But it is important to note that 

in most police agencies there are still problems 

achieving integration between crime analysis 

and the everyday world of policing, and still less 

involvement between scientific work in universities and the work of crime analysis in policing. 

Compare this with laboratories in major university hospitals where the skills of scientists are not 

only cutting-edge but are also integrated into a 

larger world of science. Major university hospitals expect their scientific staff to be conducting 

research that is published in the best scientific 

journals. They encourage them to look for new 

“discoveries” in their clinical work, and to follow standards set by national scientific bodies. 

Police departments do not, on the whole, encourage their scientific staff to publish in scientific 

journals in criminology; indeed, they generally 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 | New Perspectives in Policing 

discourage them, sometimes citing the fact that 

adverse results might damage the reputation of 

the department.5 Science in this sense is not a part 

of large policing centers. The implication of this is 

that the scientific quality of crime analysis units is 

often relatively low. 

It might be argued that police do not have the 

resources to develop science of this type in their 

agencies. Of course, one reason for this is that police 

do not place a high priority on science, and thus 

there is little support for funding for police science 

on the part of government. It might be argued as well 

that this challenge is being overcome in policing 

with the development of police-researcher partnerships. Such partnerships have played a role in 

raising the profile of science in police agencies and 

in bringing new technologies and skills, especially 

in crime analysis. The roots of police-researcher 

partnerships go back to the 1970s with the relationship of the Kansas City Police Department, Mo., to 

the Midwest Research Institute. The New York City 

Police Department (NYPD) also had an early collaboration with the Vera Institute of Justice. The 

Vera Institute-NYPD collaboration can be seen as a 

model not only because of the serious research that 

was conducted but also because the police invested 

in this partnership over a long period by providing 

the Vera Institute with a yearly grant for technical 

assistance (Bloom and Currie, 2001). 

The Vera Institute model is unusual; partnerships are more commonly a product of funding 

by state or federal agencies. The 1990s saw an 

explosion of such funding opportunities, and 

the research partnership model became a common part of the policing landscape. The origins of 

these partnerships supported by government can 

be found in the early 1990s when then Director 

James Stewart of NIJ funded a series of collaborations in which police agencies and researchers 

both received funding to enhance research on the 

police (Garner and Visher, 2003). The Drug Market 

Analysis Program, which led to a series of experimental studies of anti-drug strategies, introduced 

collaborations in Jersey City, N.J. (Weisburd and 

Green, 1994; 1995), Pittsburgh (Olligschlaeger, 

1997), Hartford, Conn., San Diego, and Kansas 

City, Mo. (Herbert, 1993). Importantly, these programs not only aided the police in the development 

of innovative strategies such as hot spots policing, 

they also produced a series of high-quality research 

products about what works in policing (Taxman 

and McEwen, 1998). 

The partnership model was further reinforced with 

the U.S. Crime Bill of 1994 and the creation of the 

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services in 

1994. Following upon earlier successes, the federal 

government now began to fund an array of different 

types of partnerships between police and scholars, 

paving the way for the acceptance of research in 

police agencies and recognition of the importance 

of policing as a focus of academic study. It became 

common to visit police agencies and see criminologists “in the building.” Many agencies began to rely 

on the advice of scholars and looked to researchers to help them develop and assess programs. 

Police scholarship developed at a quick pace with 

the number of articles on police science growing 

rapidly in this period (NRC, 2004). More importantly, the study of policing by police scholars 

became a field of greater interest with many more 

scholars participating. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm | 9 

In the United Kingdom, partnerships between 

the police and researchers also began to have 

influence in the everyday world of policing. Ken 

Pease’s groundbreaking Home Office research on 

repeat victimization in Kirkholt and Manchester 

showed how scientific evidence could change 

police practices, in this case by recognizing that a 

recent victim is very likely to be victimized again 

(Pease, 1991). The diploma/masters in applied 

criminology at Cambridge, which included 

practice-based research, was required for senior 

law enforcement managers for a brief period in 

the late 1990s. 

Although the 1990s saw a developing relationship between academic police researchers and 

the police, the role of science in police agencies 

did not fundamentally change during this time. 

The police-researcher partnerships generally 

were not sustainable after the large influx of federal funds declined. Simply put, the partnerships 

did not establish themselves as critical enough 

to the policing mission for the police to take on 

the partnerships on their own. As such they were 

arguably nice to have but could be done without. 

Science had not established itself through the 

partnerships, perhaps in part because the partnerships themselves often did not produce good 

science or science very relevant to police agencies. 

For most police agencies and academic researchers, the partnerships were an opportunity to 

increase resources for doing what they traditionally did. With some important exceptions we note 

below, neither the police nor academics really 

took ownership over these collaborations. Rather 

the police offered scholars the prospect of doing 

research with the support of federal dollars, and 

researchers offered police consultation services 

paid for by the government. 

Throughout this period, the science of police 

research remained a province of the universities 

and not police agencies. By this we mean that the 

questions asked generally had their origins in the 

questions of researchers, and not necessarily in 

the needs of the policing industry. The ownership 

of such research was not in the agencies that were 

the sites for its development, but in the academic 

institutions and among the academic researchers 

that sponsored them. Importantly, some of these 

projects, like the Drug Market Analysis Program, 

developed police practices in response to police 

and government definitions of critical problems. 

The pulling levers approach (Kennedy, 2006) 

developed by Harvard University’s Kennedy 

School is a more recent example of this important 

trend. However, more common is the perception 

of many police that the real beneficiaries of such 

research programs are the researchers and not 

the police. And why they would not they feel this 

way, considering that the research findings are 

often disseminated long after the sites have lost 

interest in the questions asked and usually after 

new administrators that have little contact with 

the original research are in office? Indeed, the 

need for academics to publish in peer-reviewed 

journals that are at best remote for most practitioners and in a style that is not readily transferable 

to the policing workplace has meant that much 

useful research might just as well have been buried in a time capsule. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 | New Perspectives in Policing 

Finally, a deeper and more fundamental reason for 

the disconnect between police science and police 

practitioners lies in the fundamentals of police education and training. As we have suggested above, 

science is normally not central to police education and training. Neither CEPOL’s recent survey 

(Hanak and Hofinger, 2005) nor Janet Chan and 

colleagues’ seminal study of student officer training (Chan, Devery and Doran, 2003) shows much 

evidence of a professional and evidence-based 

approach to learning. Although it may be critical 

for police officers to have a good working knowledge of the law, that this is to the exclusion of a good 

working knowledge of the theory and evidence for 

its effective practice strikes us as a major factor in 

the failure of science to establish itself in policing. 

Moreover, the limited progress of police to create 

accredited standards for education prior to joining the force and throughout the careers of police 

officers has reinforced the realities of policing as a 

“blue collar job” (Reiner, 2000) rather than a profession supported by a credible corpus of knowledge. 

This, in turn, has further distanced police from the 

importance and relevance of police science. 

The Costs of Failing to Own Police Research 

Our discussion so far suggests the extent to which 

the police have so far failed to take ownership of 

police science. Even in the case of technology, the 

police have, on the whole, been reactive to science 

and have allowed outside institutions to dictate 

what science would tell them. As a consequence, 

policing often remains outside the sphere of 

evidence-based policy. Although it is fair to say 

that there are limitations to the evidence base, we 

would suggest the police do not tend to place such 

evidence as the central rationale for policy decisions. We think this may have serious consequences 

for policing in the future. Such consequences are 

already evident in the growing financial crisis 

that is facing many policing agencies (Gascón and 

Foglesong, 2010). Policing is becoming increasingly 

expensive as a public service, and without a scientific base to legitimize the value of police, it is likely 

that public policing will face growing threats from 

other less costly alternatives, like private policing, 

or that many police services now taken for granted 

will be abandoned (Bayley and Nixon, 2010). 

Without scientific evidence and a more scientific 

approach, police are going to be increasingly vulnerable to politicians and advocates pressing either 

populist approaches or budget reductions in favor 

of other services that are able to present better evidence-based business cases for public investment. 

A reality in which the police see little value in academic research is also a reality in which there will 

be few serious scientists who are interested in or 

know about the police. This is to some degree natural, since it would be surprising if large numbers 

of scientists at the top of their profession became 

interested in the police at the same time that there 

was little prospect for serious scientific research on 

the police. There is today, compared to other major 

public services, little funding for research on policing, and this means that young scientists will be 

unlikely to see policing as an area of study with 

promise. This is a vicious cycle: a lack of priority 

accorded to science translates into limited investment and kudos attached to police science and, in 

turn, into limited opportunities and career prospects for scientists interested in policing research. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm | 11 

An interesting implication of these trends for academic criminology more generally is that police 

science is a relatively low-status area of specialization within the discipline of criminology and 

criminal justice. Policing journals are generally 

of lower quality as compared with the main journals in the field, and whatever their quality, they 

are ranked among the lower status outlets for academic papers.6 It is ironic that an area of study 

with tremendous policy importance and with significant implications for public health and safety 

remains an area of low academic status in the scientific discipline in which it sits. But in a sense 

this is not surprising, because scientific study of 

policing is not integrated nor valued in the police 

world, and accordingly it has not gained advantage from what would seem its most important 

strength — its potential as a policy science. 

Perhaps the most important cost of the present 

reality is that there is a gap between scientific 

research and clinical practice. Jonathan Shepherd 

(2004:15) argues that “[l]ike policing, medicine is 

both an art and a science. But the extent to which 

police services are based on scientific evidence 

of effectiveness is much lower than in medicine, 

where there are more than 300,000 references to 

field experiments and more than 4,800 published 

reviews.” Shepherd’s statement is if anything 

overly conservative, since there are only a handful of reviews of scientific evidence in policing 

and at most a few dozen experimental field trials.7 

Clinical practice in policing has little scientific 

guidance and though much more is known today 

than in earlier decades (NRC, 2004; Weisburd and 

Eck, 2004), what is most striking about policing 

is that we know little about what works, in what 

contexts, and at what cost. Does it make sense 

for an industry that spends $43.3 billion a year 

in the U.S. alone on personnel, equipment and 

infrastructure (Hickman and Reaves, 2006) to 

spend less than $10 million a year on research? 

Does it make sense for large police agencies that 

have budgets of many billions of dollars to have 

no budget for the development of research on 

what the police do? One might argue that the cost 

of research should not be borne primarily by local 

police agencies, but it seems to us unreasonable 

that such agencies that are equivalent to large 

medical centers do not see themselves as responsible for advancing and testing their practices in 

a scientific framework. 

Toward a New Paradigm: Police 

Ownership of Police Science 

How can we move police science to a central 

place in the policing industry? What is required 

for policing to become an evidence-based profession? Our answer to these questions is surprisingly 

simple, but we suspect it will nevertheless be 

challenging for both police practitioners and academic researchers. For police science to succeed 

the way science has in other professions, it must 

move from the outside to the center of policing. 

Scientific research must become a natural and 

organic part of the police mission. Science must 

become a natural part of police education, and 

police education must become based in science. 

Science in policing must answer questions that 

are critical to the police function, and it must 

address problems that are at the core of policing 

and address the everyday realities that police face. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 | New Perspectives in Policing 

The answers of science must be timely for the police. 

Though science at times cannot be rushed, it is also 

true that a science that fails to produce answers in 

a timely fashion cannot be relevant to a profession 

that works in the real world. 

Police science must “make the scene” and become 

a part of the policing world. Police involvement in 

science must become more generally valued and 

rewarded. For that to happen, the policing industry 

must take ownership of police science. Police science is often irrelevant to the policing world today 

because it is not part of the policing enterprise 

but something external to it. To take ownership 

the police will have to take science seriously, and 

accept that they cannot continue to justify their 

activities on the basis of simplistic statistics, often 

presented in ways that bias findings to whatever is 

advantageous to police. We accept that this is not a 

straightforward challenge. As Sir Ronnie Flanagan 

(2008) identified in his review of policing in the U.K., 

policing is a high-risk environment and operates 

in a highly political context, in which reporting failures or presenting complex results can be 

uncomfortable territory. Both authors have experience of debates with chiefs about the difficulties of 

embarking on scientifically researched pilots that 

may report adverse results. But would a director 

of a major medical center be comfortable arguing against additional research on a major public 

health problem like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome 

because it might show that present treatments in 

the hospital were ineffective? If not, why should the 

continuation of a large public program to reduce 

crime not be considered similarly? As Joan McCord 

(2003) has observed, major social programs can 

have not only positive impacts but also lead to serious harms, just as treatments in public medicine. 

The police must see science as integral to their 

mission both because it can help them to define 

practices and programs that have promise, and 

because it can allow them to assess such innovations in terms of how well they work, and at what 

cost. Evidence-based practice is becoming a key 

component of public institutions in medicine, 

education and government (Sackett et al., 2000; 

Sanderson, 2002; Slavin, 2002). In this regard, education provides a particularly instructive example 

for the policing industry. Education, like policing, 

operates in a world of decentralized and independent agencies. And before the turn of the 21st 

century, large education programs were seldom 

subjected to evaluation, and there was little federal 

investment in high-quality experimental field trials (Cook, 2001). However, in fiscal year 2009, just 

seven years after the establishment of the Institute 

of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of 

Education, the federal budget for high-quality 

research reached $167 million, with a fiscal year 

2010 request for $224.2 million (U.S. Department 

of Education, 2009). Evidence-based science has 

grown exponentially in education. We see no reason why such growth would not be possible in 

policing. We would argue that if the police choose 

to invest in the evidence-based science movement, 

they would enhance the value and reputation of the 

profession in the public sphere. 

In this context, it is reasonable for the police to 

expect that government will play a key role in 

developing police science. One missing component of police science today is large public research 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm | 13 

institutes that can play the leadership role in 

advancing research about police practices. In 

the 1970s, the government and foundations 

in the U.S. developed such institutions as the 

Police Foundation, the Police Executive Research 

Forum, and the research arm of the International 

Association of Chiefs of Police. But, whatever the 

many successes of these institutes in the development of police science, they cannot take on the 

central role of government entities such as the 

National Institutes of Health or the Institute of 

Education Sciences. There is clearly a need for a 

large government agency that would play a central role in police science. Such an agency could 

also provide much needed guidance as to standards for police agencies, license and accredit 

police practice, require continuous professional 

development, and perhaps most importantly 

hold agencies that continue to use ineffective 

or harmful practices accountable. The National 

Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) in the U.K. 

has been following this approach for its first three 

years, suggesting that our idea is not far-fetched. 

However, its emergence has not been without 

friction, and the new coalition government has 

decided to phase the agency out, sharing its functions with a range of new bodies. It is yet to be 

seen whether the progress made can be sustained 

through transition and through budget cuts. 

But such an agency could not on its own create the kind of police science we are talking 

about, especially in the U.S. where policing is 

decentralized across thousands of independent 

agencies. For an elite and relevant police science 

to develop, police agencies will also have to take 

clear ownership over police science. This means 

that police agencies will have to prioritize science, and in doing so they will have to include 

science in agencies and advocate for science in 

government. To what extent do police executives 

today see their role as advocating for increased 

funding for police science? Is it common to see 

police executives on Capitol Hill or in national 

parliaments demanding larger budgets for police 

research? It is not, in part because police executives generally do not see police research as a key 

part of their responsibility. They have tended to 

see academics and universities as responsible 

for advocating for research. Of course, from the 

perspective of government, there is little reason 

to give money for police science if police practitioners do not themselves prioritize such science 

and its application to practice. 

There are some good examples which lend 

support to our arguments. There are already 

indications of agencies that are taking the lead in 

this aspect of ownership of police science. In the 

San Bernardino Valley in California, for example, police chiefs have banded together to seek 

public support for an evidence-based research 

center in their communities that would conduct 

reviews of scientific evidence for the agencies 

and conduct evaluations of new programs. In 

Redlands, Calif., Chief Jim Bueermann has 

hired an in-house criminologist and invested in 

master’s-level criminology for key middle managers. Commissioner Ramsey, in Philadelphia, has 

commissioned Temple University to conduct 

field trials on hot spot patrols. In the U.K., three 

police agencies, Manchester, West Midlands and 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14 | New Perspectives in Policing 

Staffordshire, funded by NPIA, have embarked on 

randomized control trials of key aspects of practice. 

These are key developments but they are still too 

reliant on innovative chiefs and government support. Government support for police research is as 

critical to police science as federal support of medical research is to medicine. But recognition of the 

value of police science also means placing it on the 

list of financial priorities of police agencies. 

For this police science to succeed it must be a “blue 

chip” science. Universities must become an important part of police infrastructure. It is instructive 

to remember that hospitals were not always integrated with major university centers. Indeed, in 

the early 19th century the integration of universities and hospitals was a major innovation. Tenon 

(1788) pioneered this innovation by pointing out 

that hospitals were like butcheries and that medical training and research needed to be brought into 

the medical centers.8 Note that innovators did not 

remove medical research from the hospital, but 

rather sought to bring the “universities into the hospitals” (Bonner, 2000). In this same sense we must 

bring the universities into police centers. Again, 

there are important examples of such programs 

already developing.9 In Providence, R.I. (with John 

Jay College of Criminal Justice) and Alexandria, Va. 

(with George Mason University), new partnerships 

between police and researchers are developing that 

build on the university medical center model and 

that have been initiated by the partners rather than 

federal funding agencies. 

A more general indication that such trends have 

already begun can be found in the Universities’ 

Police Science Institute at Cardiff University in the 

U.K. The Institute, according to the press release at 

its founding, represents a “collaboration between 

South Wales Police, Cardiff University and the 

University of Glamorgan with the aim of increasing 

professionalism in the police service. It is the first 

institution of its kind, integrating police research, 

policy and operations” (Cardiff University, 2007). 

Although time will tell whether these new university medical center models will be successful, they 

represent an element of the trend that we are suggesting is necessary to advance police science. We 

think more generally that there should be “clinical 

professors” of policing, and even of police specialities like burglary or homicide investigations. There 

should as well be “practitioner-scientists” who are 

supported by and located in police agencies. But 

this would mean that the universities would have 

to value police practice and reward scholars for 

advancing such practice, and police agencies would 

have to accord greater recognition to science and 

reward police officers involved in science. 

Another change that will likely have to occur if the 

paradigm we are advocating is to succeed is that 

training of police and police researchers will need 

to take place, at least in part, at university policing 

centers. In medicine, practitioners and researchers are trained in the same university teaching 

hospitals. Jonathan Shepherd argues that a major 

impediment to the development of crime science 

is the fact that practitioners have little understanding of science, and scientists little understanding 

of practice (Shepherd, 2001; see also Feucht and 

Innes, 2009). He advocates for a major change in 

education for police and police researchers and the 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm | 15 

introduction of a university hospital model for 

policing. We think this proposal has much merit 

and would play a major role in putting police 

research in police agencies so that it is connected 

to the real world of policing. Of course, there are 

significant impediments to such a model. Many 

police agencies still only require a high school 

degree for employment. Even though there has 

been a call for decades for a bachelor’s requirement in policing both by scholars and police 

executives (Carte and Carte, 1973; Carter and 

Sapp, 1990; Roberg and Bonn, 2004), the resistance of police unions will make it difficult to 

implement this change generally anytime soon. 

Again, we think it short-sighted on the part of 

unions to resist a college education requirement, both because the new realities of policing 

demand greater education and because the relatively higher salaries of young police officers 

make their educational requirements inconsistent with those in other professions. 

But more generally, the movement of at least 

some components of police science education 

into police agencies would facilitate the changes 

we are suggesting. The police and police scientists must have shared understandings not only of 

the realities of police work but also of the requirements of evidence-based policy. It is difficult to 

develop a high level of police science when police 

officers generally have limited understanding of what science is and what it requires and, 

most importantly, how they should assess the 

judgments of science against their professional 

intuition. Similarly, when academic researchers have no real understanding of the everyday 

problems of police and the realities of policing, it 

is hard to imagine that they will develop valuable 

research about policing or research that is translated into practice in the policing world. In short, 

we need to see the development of the sort of 

shared academic-practitioner infrastructure that 

is an accepted part of medicine and education: 

websites and publications that are jointly used 

by and contributed to by academic and practitioner users; a culture of continuous professional 

development, supported by accreditation, that 

encourages practitioners to engage with the evidence and contribute more of their own; rewards 

and recognition in policing that showcase highquality evidence-based practice; and the role of 

chief scientific officer, broader than forensics 

and embracing all aspects of the application of 

science to the development and deployment of 

policing. 

Finally, there is no question that the measures of 

success of police agencies will have to be changed 

if police science is to be accorded a high priority 

within the police. Today, there is limited pressure 

on police executives to show that their policies 

and practices are evidence-based. Compstat 

represents perhaps the only major management 

innovation in policing that succeeded even in 

part in putting outcomes, and especially crime 

outcomes, at the center of evaluation of performance in policing. Although Compstat was not 

evidence-based, it was performance-based and 

was widely adopted across American police 

agencies. The development of Compstat argues 

strongly that the police as an industry do care 

about showing that their practices work. The shift 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16 | New Perspectives in Policing 

we are suggesting would place science as a key component of such evaluation. 

Our vision of the changes from the current to 

our new paradigm can be summarized in the 

table below. 

Instead of being incidental to change and development in policing, we envisage science at the 

heart of a progressive approach to policing. From 

the very beginning, recruits to the organization 

would be inducted and trained within a scientific framework. Although knowledge of the law 

is a critical component of effective policing, our 

recruits would understand the evidential base 

not only of legislation but also of the most effective strategies to harness the law for the betterment 

of society. They would learn that, as professional 

police officers, there would be a constant expectation that they would contribute to the expansion 

of knowledge through their own research and field 

experimentation, an expectation strongly reinforced by an informed and committed leadership 

that understands that knowledge drives improvement in policing, just as it provides better medicine, 

teaching and forensic provision. Throughout their 

careers, our officers would be constantly exposed 

to the challenge of excellent teaching from police 

universities, at which the very best of their number 

would hold posts as clinical professors. The constant cycle of learning and improvement would 

be supported by the commitment of a significant 

percentage of the organization’s budget, in the firm 

and committed belief that excellence is a product 

of knowledge and constant, systematic challenge 

and research. 

We would, equally, expect a seismic shift in the 

world of universities and the academic infrastructure supporting policing. As the police move up 

a gear and prioritize science, we would expect to 

see police science move up the academic league. 

Changing to a Science-Based Policing Paradigm 

Old Paradigm 

Education and training	 Based around legal knowledge and work-based learning. 

Leaders see science as useful when it is supports initiatives, Leadership but an inconvenient truth when it does not. 

Academic-police relationship	 Separate and distinct institutional and professional structures. 

Practice develops by individual initiatives and political Development of practice mandates.
 

A limited national and local or individual commitment to
 Investment in research evaluating specific initiatives. 

Science-Based Policing 

Founded in science, linking scientific knowledge with practice 

and continual professional development. 

Leaders both value science and see it as a crucial part of their 

own, their staff and their agencies’ development and essential 

to the agencies’ efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy with 

the public. 

University police schools combining both teaching and 

research, with strong institutional links and personnel 

exchange with local police agencies. 

Practitioners and agencies are committed to constant and 

systematic research and evaluation of practice. 

A committed percentage of police spending devoted to research, 

evaluation and the development of the science and research 

base which is framed within a national (and possibly international) strategy to build the knowledge base over the medium to 

long term. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm | 17 

The next generation of police scientists would 

contain many practitioner-academics, with the 

first “clinical professors” of policing paralleling 

their colleagues in medicine. We would expect 

the rapid development of the tools of translation 

to ensure the knowledge developed through scientific research is persistently disseminated into 

practice. George Mason University’s EvidenceBased Policing Matrix (http://gemini.gmu.edu/ 

cebcp/Matrix.html) and NPIA’s Police Online 

Knowledge Area (http://www.npia.police.uk) 

are early standard bearers of such approaches. 

But we would also expect that the next generation would publish their findings in an accessible 

form in publications of NPIA, NIJ, IACP, the 

Police Executive Research Forum and the Police 

Foundation in tandem with submission to peerreviewed academic journals. 

Conclusions: Owning Police Science 

We have argued in our essay for the importance of 

the adoption of the norms of evidence-based policy in policing and of the police taking ownership 

of police science. Such ownership would facilitate 

the implementation of evidence-based practices 

and policies in policing, and would change the 

fundamental relationship between research and 

practice. It would also fundamentally change the 

realities of police science in the universities. We 

believe that such a change would increase the 

quality and prestige of police science. It is time 

to redefine the relationship between policing and 

science. We think that bringing the universities 

into police centers, and having the police take 

ownership of police science will improve policing 

and ensure its survival in a competitive world of 

provision of public services. 

Endnotes 

1. The European Police College (http://www.cepol. 

net), which is an agency of the European Union 

and based at Bramshill in Hampshire, U.K., is 

cosituated with the National Leadership campus 

of the National Police Improvement Agency. 

2. Author’s personal communication with 

Thomas E. Feucht, Executive Senior Science 

Advisor, National Institute of Justice, Feb. 3, 2010. 

It is important to note that this amount represents 

a significant increase in funding compared with 

prior years (e.g., in fiscal year 2006 only $10.7 million was spent on social science research). 

3. The idea of “embedded researchers” has 

recently been advanced by Joan Petersilia, a 

leading corrections researcher in California. 

Professor Petersilia was called upon by Governor 

Schwarzenegger to reform the correctional system through a new role as Special Advisor for 

Policy, Planning and Research. She argues that 

it is critical for criminologists to become nested 

in the correctional system if they are to create 

change (Petersilia, 2008). 

4. In the United Kingdom, the rapid growth of 

forensics came after the 1962 report of the Royal 

Commission on Police. 

5. One of the authors is the editor of the Oxford 

Journal of Policing, which is committed to encouraging practitioners to publish on their work. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18 | New Perspectives in Policing 

6. Policing: An International Journal of Police 

Strategies and Management is the only policing 

journal to receive an impact factor score from 

Thomson’s Social Science Citation Index. It ranks 

27th out of 29 criminology and penology journals. 

7. The authors could identify only 22 randomized experiments related to policing. (See also 

http://gunston.gmu.edu/cebcp/Matrix.html.) 

8. The authors are indebted to Jonathan Shepherd 

for pointing to Tenon’s observation. 

9. There are also examples of earlier attempts to 

develop such models (e.g., see Weiss and McGarrell, 

1997). 

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Author Note 

David Weisburd is Distinguished Professor of 

Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason 

University and Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law 

and Criminal Justice at the Hebrew University 

Law School. He is the 2010 recipient of the 

Stockholm Prize in Criminology. 

Peter Neyroud is the Chief Constable and Chief 

Executive of the National Policing Improvement 

Agency in the United Kingdom and recipient of 

the Queen’s Police Medal. 

This paper was written in support of the Executive 

Session on Policing and Public Safety at the 

Kennedy School of Government and is intended 

to stimulate discussion among practitioners 

and policymakers on the development of more 

evidence-based, scientific approaches to policing. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. Department of Justice 

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Washington, DC 20531 *NCJ~228922*

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Members of the Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety
 

Chief Anthony Batts, Oakland Police 

Department 

Professor David Bayley, Distinguished 

Professor, School of Criminal Justice, 

State University of New York at Albany 

Dr. Anthony Braga, Senior Research 

Associate, Lecturer in Public Policy, 

Program in Criminal Justice Policy and 

Management, Kennedy School of 

Government, Harvard University 

Chief William J. Bratton, Los Angeles 

Police Department 

Chief Ella Bully-Cummings, Detroit Police 

Department (retired) 

Ms. Christine Cole (Facilitator), Executive 

Director, Program in Criminal Justice Policy 

and Management, Kennedy School of 

Government, Harvard University 

Commissioner Edward Davis, Boston 

Police Department 

Chief Ronald Davis, East Palo Alto 

Police Department 

Chief Edward Flynn, Milwaukee 

Police Department 

Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent, 

New Jersey State Police 

Chief George Gascón, San Francisco 

Police Department 

Mr. Gil Kerlikowske, Director, Office of 

National Drug Control Policy 

Chief Cathy Lanier, Washington D.C. 

Metropolitan Police Department 

Dr. John H. Laub, Director, National 

Institute of Justice 

Ms. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Visiting 

Scholar, New York University 

Professor Tracey Meares, Walton Hale 

Hamilton Professor of Law, Yale Law School 

Chief Constable Peter Neyroud, Chief 

Executive, National Policing Improvement 

Agency (U.K.) 

Christine Nixon, Chair, Victorian Bushfire 

Reconstruction and Recovery Authority 

(Australia) 

Chief Richard Pennington, Atlanta Police 

Department 

Mayor Jerry Sanders, City of San Diego 

Professor David Sklansky, Professor of 

Law, Faculty Co-Chair of the Berkeley Center 

for Criminal Justice, University of California, 

Berkeley, School of Law 

Mr. Sean Smoot, Director and Chief Legal 

Counsel, Police Benevolent and Protective 

Association of Illinois 

Professor Malcolm Sparrow, Professor of 

Practice of Public Management, Kennedy 

School of Government, Harvard University 

Chief Darrel Stephens, CharlotteMecklenburg Police Department (retired) 

Professor Christopher Stone, Guggenheim 

Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice, 

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard 

University 

Mr. Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay 

College of Criminal Justice 

Mr. Rick VanHouten, President, Fort Worth 

Police Association 

Professor David Weisburd, Walter E. Meyer 

Professor of Law and Criminal Justice; 

Director, Institute of Criminology, Faculty 

of Law, The Hebrew University and 

Distinguished Professor, Department of 

Criminology, Law, and Society, George 

Mason University 

Dr. Chuck Wexler, Executive Director, 

Police Executive Research Forum 

Learn more about the Executive Session at: 

NIJ’s website: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/law-enforcement/executive-sessions/welcome.htm
 

Harvard’s website: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/criminaljustice/executive_sessions/policing.htm
 

NCJ 228922