Research: A Practitoner's Perspective, From the Streets

Given at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Annual Conference July 17, 2024 by Chief William J. Bratton

Good afternoon and thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to address this exceptional gathering of scholars, researchers and criminal justice professionals. Like all of you I enjoy and appreciate these conferences in that they give us an opportunity to look at where we have been, where we are, and most importantly, where we might be going and to be intrigued and inspired about the possibilities the future holds. Unlike most of you I am first and foremost a practitioner, a cop, and have been for 36 years. But I am also a consumer and strong advocate of research. As the current president of the Police Executive Research Forum, the foremost practitioner- research partnership organization in policing, I am a proponent of more intimate partnerships and collaboration between practitioners and academics – partnerships that helped to shape successful problem solving and community policing philosophies of the 20th Century and can lead to a better understanding of the complexities of the rapidly expanding paradigm of crime and Criminal Justice in America in the 21st Century.
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