Areas of Expertise

• Police organizations
• Future of policing
• Citizen perceptions of police
• Police leadership

Key Findings

• Small police agencies have not uniformly adopted preparedness policies for homeland security. MORE
• For small police agencies, interactions with large agencies contributed to their likelihood of being prepared. MORE
• Small agencies proximity to large agencies had no direct effect on homeland security preparedness. MORE
• Effective leader traits included integrity, work ethic, communication, and care for personnel. MORE
• Participants described the ideal leadership process as a mixture of training and education, experience, and feedback. MORE
• Respondents reported the largest barriers to effective leadership and leadership practices in the police industry were cultural, structural and political, not fiscal. MORE

Biography

Joseph Schafer, Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice at St. Louis University, is an expert in policing, criminal justice management and administration, policy and program evaluation, police leadership and organizational change.

Schafer is the Chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Southern Illinois University and a Commissioner with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies in Gainesville, VA. He was a member of the PFI/FBI Futures Working Group, a past president of the Society of Police Futurists International and a former visiting scholar in the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA.

He has been published in numerous academic journals and co-authored, “Advancing police professionalism in an era of crisis: Organizational change and institutional reform” and “Effective Leadership in policing: Successful traits and habits.”

Schafer received his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences and M.S. in Criminal Justice from Michigan State University and B.A. in Criminology from the University of Northern Iowa.

Follow Joseph on Twitter: @ja_schafer