Leading Policing in Europe

An Empirical Study of Police Leadership

Abstract

This article summarises the empirical research data obtained by the authors from interviewing more than a hundred strategic police leaders in forces across 22 countries in Europe. The authors have categorised the leaders’ confidential comments into a series of insightful analyses of police recruitment, selection, promotion and posting, diversity, attitudes to multilateral cooperation and joint operations, views on contemporary policing problems, including threats from terrorism and transnational organised crime, and incorporates their visions of a future, perhaps dystopian, Europe dominated by cybercrime and public disorder.