Police Administration

This national best-selling text examines police administration from multiple perspectives: a systems perspective (emphasizing the interrelatedness among units and organizations); a traditional, structural perspective (administrative principles, management functions, and the importance of written guidelines); a human behavioral perspective (the human element in organizations); and a strategic management perspective (communications and information systems, performance evaluation, strategies and tactics, and prevailing and promising approaches to increasing effectiveness of police agencies).

Coverage of management functions and organizational principles is streamlined while providing a stronger emphasis on diversity principles and on developing police agencies as learning organizations. A concluding chapter covers contemporary issues, including community engagement, collaboration, globalization, racial profiling, mass media, cybercrime, terrorism and homeland security. Case studies based on real-life events invite students to practice managing the conflicting circumstances, and Modern policing blog posts offer news and developments in the policing world.

Gary Cordner is professor emeritus at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and a Commissioner of CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies). He is Senior Research Associate with the Police Foundation and Senior Police Advisor for International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance (ICITAP), U.S. Department of Justice, in Ukraine, and has been associated with the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing since its inception. Cordner joined the Department of Criminal Justice at Kutztown University in 2008, after teaching for 21 years at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU), including five years as Dean of the College of Justice & Safety. At EKU he also founded and directed the Regional Community Policing Institute and the International Justice & Safety Institute. Before joining the faculty at EKU, he worked as a police officer and police chief in Maryland and taught at Washington State University and the University of Baltimore. He maintains the Modern Policing Blog at https://gcordner.wordpress.com/, which comments on news and developments in the policing world.

Cordner is a past member of the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council, the Kentucky Criminal Justice Council, and the Lexington/Fayette County Civil Service Commission; founding editor ofPolice Quarterly and past editor of the American Journal of Police; and past president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS). He has published several books and numerous articles and book chapters on community policing, police administration, and related topics. He has received the Academy Fellow Award, Bruce Smith Sr. Award, and Outstanding Paper Award from ACJS, in addition to the O.W. Wilson Award from the Police Section of ACJS, the Outstanding Educator Award from the Southern Criminal Justice Association, and outstanding alumnus awards from Northeastern University and Michigan State University.