Police Leadership in the United States

Abstract

Leadership is an enduring concern in American policing. In a post-Ferguson era, the police find themselves once again confronting a crisis of trust and confidence. Better leaders and leadership represent important mechanisms to ameliorate these concerns and to disrupt American policing’s historical cycle of controversy. This chapter examines the historical and current periods of crisis in US policing as they relate to police leadership. It provides an overview of the major programmes and initiatives designed to develop future generations of US police leaders, while discussing the lack of evidence validating how-best to develop better police leaders. The chapter concludes with a discussion of ways to enhance the quality of leaders and leadership in policing to better serve the interests of citizens and society.