(Perhaps no other book in policing has captured more admir...)
Perhaps no other book in policing has captured more admiration and market share than O.W. Wilson's "Police Administration". Now Wilson's text has been revised by three top scholars in the field. This long awaited revision combines the nuts and bolts approach of the original with an up-to-date theoretical and policy perspective that makes it accessible to students and practitioners alike.
https://www.amazon.com/Police-Administration-Orlando-Winfield-Wilson/dp/007070726X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=007070726X
(Excerpt from Police Records: Their Installation and Use ...)
Excerpt from Police Records: Their Installation and Use A fourth purpose of records is more ambitious still; it involves the use of records in the analysis of emerging situations, in the anticipation of problems and the development of plans - not under the compulsion of immediate necessity and without regard either for the past or for the next succeeding development, but rather in calm and calculating detachment. Here is administration in one of its higher forms; here abstractions are dealt with in terms of reality; here a course of future action is carefully plotted to meet issues halfway and before they have reached critical proportions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
https://www.amazon.com/Police-Records-Installation-Classic-Reprint/dp/0364915013?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0364915013
Orlando Wilson was born on May 15, 1900, in Veblen, South Dakota, the son of Ole Knut Wilson (born Vraalson), a lawyer turned farmer who also invested in real estate and the grain business, and Olava Stoutland, a schoolteacher. The family moved to Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1905 and then to California in 1911, eventually settling in Pacific Beach.
Wilson graduated from San Diego High School in 1918. He entered the University of California at Berkeley anticipating a career as a mining engineer.
Instead, he became a police patrolman in Berkeley in 1921, when the postwar recession adversely affected his father's farm. He worked under Berkeley Police Chief August Vollmer, a leading advocate of police reform, who became Wilson's professional mentor. Wilson graduated from Berkeley in 1924 and remained with the Berkeley police until 1925.
With Vollmer's recommendation, Wilson was hired as chief of police in Fullerton, California, in 1925. There he introduced many of the practices that Vollmer had developed in Berkeley, including a new records system and a new officer response system. He was asked to resign in 1926, in part because of his willingness to discuss controversial ideas publicly. Wilson talked to community groups about, but did not necessarily advocate, sterilizing "criminal types" and using birth control as a means of limiting population.
From 1926 to 1928 he worked as an investigator for the Pacific Finance Corporation in Los Angeles. There he investigated credit applicants and repossessed automobiles.
In 1928, Wilson became police chief of Wichita, Kansas, again with Vollmer's recommendation. The Wichita police had a reputation for corruption and the use of excessive force. Wilson strove to implement the lessons of police administration that he had learned from Vollmer, adapting some and rejecting others based on his own experience. In particular, Wilson's conception of policing minimized Vollmer's focus on crime prevention and the establishment of a relationship between the police and the community. Wilson viewed police work in isolation and placed greater emphasis on technical skills and technological innovations. In addition, Wilson spearheaded the creation of a state training program for police in Kansas, to avail his department of expertise that Wichita could not afford. However, his reforms earned him influential enemies. Two city commissioners eventually pressured him to leave Wichita by threatening to undermine his authority.
When Wilson took a one-year leave of absence in 1939 to serve as a consultant to the Public Administration Service, an agency that worked on various public policy questions, in Chicago, it was understood that his departure would be permanent. At the Public Administration Service Wilson surveyed municipal police departments for the purpose of reorganizing them, and also wrote on aspects of police administration. However, he left after just three months to return to the University of California, Berkeley, as full-time professor of police administration. Along with his academic duties, he continued to survey police departments as a consultant for the Public Administration Service. Wilson's academic career was interrupted by military service during World War II.
In 1943 he entered the United States Army's School of Military Government with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Wilson's considerable experience in law enforcement was unique among his classmates. After graduating with honors, he became director of public safety in Naples, Italy, in 1943.
After approximately three months in Naples, he was reassigned to England as director of the Public Safety Division of the German Country Unit, Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Wilson and his staff began preparations for the creation of local police forces no longer under the direction or influence of the Nazis.
In 1945, Wilson's unit was transferred to Berlin to implement the plans they had developed. He was discharged from the army in 1946, but continued his work on developing a new German police force for another year as a civilian employee. Wilson's experience reinforced his belief in the military as a model for effective police organization.
He returned to the University of California at Berkeley in 1947. When the university expanded the Bureau of Police Administration into the School of Criminology in 1950, Wilson became its first dean. In addition to his academic responsibilities, Wilson's summers were absorbed by more surveys of police departments for the Public Administration Service. The demand for Wilson's services increased in the wake of the revelations concerning police corruption and ties to organized crime during Senator Estes Kefauver's Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce.
In 1960, Wilson accepted an invitation from Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago to chair the search committee for a new police superintendent. The Chicago Police Department had been rocked by the "Sommerdale scandal, " in which eight police officers were implicated in a burglary ring. When Wilson's committee could not agree on one outstanding candidate, it was suggested that Wilson was best qualified for the job. Wilson was interviewed, nominated, and then appointed by Daley. Before accepting the position, Wilson demanded and received Daley's assurance of complete autonomy.
From 1960 to 1967 Wilson implemented his reforms in Chicago. Some of those reforms required substantial expenditures for modern equipment. Others were intended to root out corruption, revise the promotion system, and protect the department from political influences. His reforms antagonized many policemen and politicians, but Daley supported him. The 1960's also brought challenges that Wilson had not faced in Fullerton or Wichita. He criticized Supreme Court decisions such as Escobedo and Miranda that made police work more difficult by expanding the protections afforded suspects. He handled Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 's 1966 civil rights campaign in Chicago with skill and courtesy, even while disagreeing with King on specific points. For example, King favored the establishment of a civilian review board. Wilson, however, considered such a board antithetical to his longstanding objective of insulating police forces from what he considered outside interference.
When Wilson retired in 1967, he did so for personal reasons. The suspicion exists, however, that Daley was glad to see Wilson leave so he could reassert mayoral control over the police department. Despite his accomplishments, Wilson's career reveals the difficulty of implementing and maintaining police reform. The discipline that he had demanded eroded following his departure, as evidenced by what Wilson considered the unprofessional behavior of the Chicago police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Wilson retired to Poway, California, where he died on October 18, 1972.
Orlando Winfield Wilson was the most influential figure in the history of American law enforcement, whose career as a police chief, criminology professor, consultant and author began in 1921, and spanned forty-six years. His accomplishments during this period have not been surpassed: He is the Father of the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics; he began America's first police-college cadet program; he pioneered state sponsored training courses and minimum standards for police personnel; he initiated psychological testing for police officers; he founded the country's first professional school of criminology; and he authored the most widely circulated police administration textbook in history.
(Excerpt from Police Records: Their Installation and Use ...)
(Perhaps no other book in policing has captured more admir...)
On June 3, 1923, Orlando Wilson married Vernis Haddon. They had two children before their divorce in 1943.
On June 22, 1950, Wilson married Ruth Elinor Evans. They had one child.
