Police Leadership and Administration: A 21st-Century Strategic Approach

This innovative text adapts the strategic management process to the police organizational environment, illustrating how to tailor responses to the unique problems and issues that professionals are likely to face in the field of law enforcement. The authors cover pioneering management techniques for leaders facing the challenges of today’s complex environment, offering police executives guidance on planning, setting direction, developing strategy, assessing internal and external environments, creating learning organizations, and managing and evaluating the change process. The book also tackles how to handle the political, economic, social, and technical considerations that differ from one community to the next.

Providing a foundation with which to adapt to an ever-changing criminal justice climate, this book trains leaders to search for solutions rather than relying on old formulas and scientific management principles. It is an essential resource for forward-thinking police leadership courses in colleges and professional training programs.

Gennaro F. Vito is a Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Louisville. He also serves as a faculty member in the Administrative Officer’s Course at the Southern Police Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration from The Ohio State University. Active in professional organizations, he is a past President and Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and recipient of its Bruce Smith Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to criminal justice as an academic or professional. He has published on topics including capital sentencing, police consolidation, police traffic stops, policing strategies for drug problems in public housing, attitudes toward capital punishment, and the effectiveness of criminal justice programs, such as drug elimination programs, drug courts, and drug testing of probationers and parolees. He has made more than 100 presentations at professional meetings, including the American Correctional Association, the International Community Corrections Association, and the Kentucky Bar Association. He is to co-author of nine textbooks in criminal justice and criminology.

Anthony G. Vito is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Ball State University. He also served on the faculty of the University of West Georgia where he received the Outstanding Research Award. He holds a Ph.D. in Justice Administration from the University of Louisville. In 2015, he was recognized as the Outstanding Graduate Student by the Southern Criminal Justice Association. Dr. Vito has published articles in various journals including Policing: an International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Deviant Behavior, and the American Journal of Criminal Justice. Dr. Vito’s research interests include policing (traffic and stop and frisk results), drug, use, criminological theory, capital sentencing, and issues surrounding race/gender in the criminal justice system.

William F. Walsh is the former Director of the Southern Police Institute and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Louisville. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Fordham University. A former Lieutenant with the New York City Police Department with 21 years of service, he has conducted research on police and security issues, and authored several articles in scholarly journals, monographs, book chapters and books on police administration, supervision, and management. Before joining the University of Louisville, he served on the Administration of Justice Faculty at The Pennsylvania State University, where he received the National Continuing Education Association Faculty Service Award in 1988. In 2006, he was named the first recipient of the James J. Fyfe Award for a lifetime of service and scholarship to the law enforcement profession by the Police Partnership of New York City. In 2008, Mayor Jerry E. Abramson of the city of Louisville, Kentucky, presented him with the Community Partnership Award for his services to the Louisville Metro Police Department.