Orlando Winfield Wilson

Orlando Winfield Wilson (May 15, 1900-October 18, 1972), also known as O.W. Wilson, was an influential leader in policing, having served as Superintendent of Police of the Chicago Police Department, chief of police in Fullerton, California and Wichita, Kansas, and authored several books on policing.

Background

Wilson was born on May 15, 1900, in Veblen, South Dakota, and moved with his family to California. In 1921, he enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in criminology and studying under August Vollmer. He graduated in 1924, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. While at Berkeley, he also worked as a police officer with the Berkeley Police Department. Such education for a police officer was rare at the time.

O.W. Wilson, together with his wife Ruth Eleanor Wilson, had one daughter. Wilson had another son and daughter, by a previous marriage.

Policing

In 1925, O.W. Wilson became chief of police of the Fullerton Police Department for two years. He then spent two years as an investigator with the Pacific Finance Corporation. In 1928, at age 28, he became chief of police of the Wichita Police Department, where he served until 1939. In Wichita, he led reforms to reduce corruption. There he instituted professionalism in the department, requiring new hires to have a college education, and introduced new innovations, such as the use police cars for patrol, mobile radios, and use of a mobile crime laboratory. He believed that use of two-way radio allowed for better supervision of patrol officers, and therefore more efficient policing. Wilson also rotated officers from community to community, to reduce their vulnerability to corruption.

In 1943, O.W. Wilson went to Europe to serve during World War II, rising to rank of colonel of military police. When the war ended, he remained in Europe until 1947, leading reorganization of police forces in Europe.

Chicago

In 1960, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, in the wake of a major police scandal, established a commission headed by O.W. Wilson to find a new police commissioner. In the end, Daley decided to appoint Wilson himself, as Commissioner. Beginning on March 2, 1960, Wilson served the Superintendent of Police of the Chicago Police Department until 1967 when he retired.

Reforms demanded at the outset by Wilson included establishment of a non-partisan police board to help govern the police force, a strict merit system for promotions within the department, an aggressive, nationwide recruiting drive for hiring new officers, and higher police salaries to attract professionally qualified officers.

For starters, Wilson moved the superintendent's office from City Hall to Police Headquarters and closed police districts and redrew their boundaries without regard to politics. Hiring standards were raised, graft curbed, and discipline tightened, with a new Police Board overseeing it. Wilson updated the communications system, adopted computers and improved record-keeping, bought new squad cars, and eliminated most foot patrols. Police boasted of quicker response times to citizen calls. Police morale, and the public image of the police, rose. Wilson also improved police relations with the black community. He recruited more African American officers, promoted black sergeants, and insisted on police restraint in racially charged conflicts.

Academia

Wilson had also taught at Harvard University in the 1930s, working with the Harvard Bureau for Street Traffic Research. He also served as director of the New England Traffic Officers' Training School, which offered intensive two-week courses to police officers on traffic safety and enforcement.

In 1939, Wilson became Professor of Police Administration at Berkeley. From 1950-1960, Wilson was the dean of Berkeley's School of Criminology. O.W. Wilson authored several books, including Police Records, Police Planning, and the highly influential work, Police Administration which was first published in 1943. While at Berkeley, Wilson also served as a consultant, advising cities including Dallas, Nashville, Birmingham, and Louisville, Kentucky on reorganization of their police agencies.

Police professionalism

By the 1950s, Wilson's ideas of police professionalism, presented in Police Administration, were widely implemented in police agencies across the United States. These ideas remained popular until the advent of community policing. Wilson believed that preventive patrol and rapid response to calls would be effective, creating a sense of police omnipresence among criminals.

After retiring from the Chicago Police Department in 1967, Wilson lived in Poway, California until his death in 1972.

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