From the Editor-in-Chief

This issue carries an essay on a Pioneer in Policing, namely, Richard V. Ericson (by Huey). This article comes almost a decade after Jack Greene’s (2010) first essay in the Series, on another pioneer, namely, William Westley, which embodied the ideals of the Pioneers Series, created to celebrate the life and work of those writers of classics in policing who have profoundly shaped our thinking as to who the police are. what they do and how they exercise power and authority over fellow human beings. These essays are celebration of both life and work.

Celebrating Westley as a Pioneer in Policing: Jack gives eloquent expression to our thoughts and ideas on the Series:

This essay was crafted through several long, semi-structured and open-ended telephone discussions with William Westley during February and March of 2009. The author is grateful for the candor, intellect and good humor of Dr. Westley during these conversations, reflecting on his life, family and career in meaningful and profound ways. I learned much from these conversations.

 Jack adds that Westley ‘was gracious in all our interactions, reminding me why being an academic is both a privilege and a responsibility, as well as a source of great personal satisfaction and even fun’.

Since 2009 we have celebrated the lives and work of several Pioneers in Policing: Jerome Skolnick, Simon Holdaway, Robert Reiner, Clifford Shearing, David Bayley, and Herman Goldstein. We are indeed excited that the last-named Pioneer, Herman Goldstein, is going to receive the Stockholm Prize in Criminology this month. Gary Cordner, Editor, Pioneer in Policing Series, has stated in a personal communication that the award committee describes him as ‘the world’s most influential scholar on modern police strategy’ and further indicates that ‘The Jury recognizes not only Professor Goldstein’s strategy of “problem-oriented policing,” but also a lifetime of pioneering work on the broader issues of police functions in society, police discretion, political accountability, police corruption, and relationships of police to the criminal-justice system’.

The Pioneers and right at this point in time, Herman Goldstein, remind me of Thomas Carlyle’s ‘The Hero as Poet; Dante and Shakespeare’ (London, Carlyle, 1897). In their works Carlyle finds ‘many windows, passages … that come upon you like splendor out of heaven; bursts of radiance illuminating the very heart of the thing; you say, that’s true’. This is the window, this is the splendor that blinded my vision when I came across Goldstein’s observation that police leaders must be ‘thinkers’ (Cambridge, Ballinger, 1977). Being in the police for 15 years before I read these words and never having ever thought of a police leader as a thinker, the impact of these words on me was to fully grasp what Carlyle says, ‘that’s true’,

This was the beginning of the International Police Executive Symposium, IPES, www.ipes.info which brings police researchers and practitioners together to facilitate cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary exchanges for the enrichment of the policing profession. The first meeting was hosted in 1994 by then Geneva Police Chief, Laurent Walpen, which was attended by several police chiefs from across the world, from Brazil to Austria, and New York to Pretoria and they were addressed by then Commissioner of Human Rights, John Pace, who commented that never a group of police leaders assembled in the Palace of Nations. It appeared that the police through IPES began the journey to the ‘Brave New World’ (Tempest, Shakespeare, 1623/1999) This was followed by the 1995 meeting in the Basque country in Spain on the theme of ‘Challenges of Policing Democracies’, a theme of pressing significance at a time when democratic transition was rampant. In pursuit of the ideal of police leaders as thinkers, IPES started producing books based on the papers of assembled police leaders and researchers and following this meeting, we had our first book published, Challenges of Policing Democracies (Das & Marenin, 2000)

It was not long before we realized that this intellectual pilgrimage to the ideal of police leaders as thinkers called for an intellectual vehicle for police practitioners and researchers to express their thoughts, reflections, as well as examination and analysis of police practice and theory. So, in the millennium, there was born a new journal, Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, (PPR), a peer reviewed international journal with a view to presenting ‘current and innovative academic police research as well as administrative and operational police practices from around the world’. And, demonstrating the underlying mission of promoting thinking police leader, PPR is committed to improving ‘cooperation between those who are active in the field and, those who are interested in active research’ (Police Practice and Research, Aim and scope, Volume 19, Issue 1, pp 111, 2018).

Soon it was realized that journal articles cannot serve as a venue for a thorough analysis and exhaustive discourse for molding police leaders as thinkers and that led to IPES endeavors for volumes on Advances in Police Theory and Practice Series; IPES Routledge Co-Publications Series and, then, Interviews with Global Leaders in Policing, Courts and Prison Series (see the Publications flyer in the issue).

In brief, what has been stated above is the humble intellectual enterprise in the field of police practice and research embodied in the concept of a police leader as a thinker and this, no doubt, is a very small tribute to inspiring intellectual leadership of Herman Goldstein, ‘the youngest’ recipient of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology.

Dilip Das
Police Practice and Research: An International Journal & President, International Police Executive Symposium
[email protected]