James J. Fyfe worked as a professor, police official, court expert witness, and media commentator in a remarkable career spanning four decades. His scholarly research, service on independent commissions and government advisory boards, and work as an expert witness in over 500 civil rights cases showed his tireless devotion to improving the policing profession. He began his career as a patrol officer with the New York City Police Department, left the force to take on a career in teaching and research, and returned 25 years later as deputy commissioner for training. He was a beloved professor at American University, Temple University, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The authors in this book were all students or associates of Fyfe and dedicate the book to his memory.
Lorie Fridell is a professor of criminology at Florida State University. Throughout the 1990s, she served as the research director for the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington, D.C. Dr. Fridell has 20 years of experience conducting research on law enforcement. Her primary research areas are the police use of force and violence against police. She also writes, consults, and trains in the area of racially biased policing. She has written or edited six books and numerous articles and chapters on these topics.
David Klinger is a professor of criminal justice at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Klinger's academic specialty is the study of police use of force, particularly deadly force, as well as police response to domestic violence. His book Into the Kill Zone won the "best book" award for 2002 from the Police Division of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. His research interests include many issues in crime and justice, with an emphasis on the organization and actions of modern police. He has published scholarly manuscripts that address arrest practices, the use of force, how features of communities affect the actions of patrol officers, and terrorism.
Justin Ready is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Arizona State University. He has served as a lead researcher on several projects evaluating the effects of police initiatives to reduce crime in urban "hot spots," funded by the Police Foundation in Washington, D.C. His interests include urban policing strategies, crime displacement, and environmental criminology.
William Terrill is an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He has directed several federally funded research projects, including a present study examining police use of force policies in eight cities across the country. Professor Terrill has published numerous scholarly articles on policing, mainly in the area of police use of force practices, as well as a book titled Police Coercion: Application of the Force Continuum.
Bryan Vila is a professor of criminal justice at Washington State University at Spokane. Prior to becoming an academic, he served as a law enforcement officer for 17 years—including nine years as a street cop and supervisor with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and six years as a police chief helping the emerging nations of Micronesia develop innovative law enforcement strategies, and two years as a federal law enforcement officer. He has published four books, including Tired Cops: The Importance of Managing Police Fatigue (2000) and Micronesian Blues (2009).
Samuel Walker is a professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He has published widely, including 12 books on police accountability, the control of discretion in the criminal justice system, and civil liberties topics, including Sense and Nonsense about Crime and the best-selling textbook Police in America. Professor Walker has served as a consultant to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and to local governments and community groups in a number of cities across the country on police accountability issues. His current research interest is the effect of citizen participation and oversight in police operations.
Michael D. White is an associate professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. He researches the effectiveness of police administrative practices as well as a variety of criminological topics. He served as director of the office of police research and evaluation at John Jay College of Criminal Justice before moving to Arizona State in 2008.
