As my term as president of the IACP comes to a close, I reflect back on the year with pride and gratitude. When I was sworn in as president last October, I identified several areas of focus that aligned with the IACP’s vision of shaping the future of the policing profession.

These included response to sexual and gender-based violence, a focus on safer communities, enhancing our advocacy weight through membership growth, and increasing our global footprint.

I am excited to say we have made progress on all of these initiatives, and the IACP will continue to focus on these important areas to ensure that the association is meeting the policing profession’s needs.

Response to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Sexual and gender-based violence and intimate partner violence are significant and horrible crimes that occur on a global scale. Recognizing the need for law enforcement to engage in and take the lead on collaborative partnerships and implement promising practices and strategies to address these complex crimes, I wanted to ensure that IACP provided police leaders and agencies with the tools they needed. That is why, for the first time in IACP history, we developed a special edition feature that was an insert in our Police Chief magazine. This special feature included articles on sexual and gender-based crimes and highlighted various tools, resources, and training programs with the goal of providing agencies with the information they need as they continue to serve the victims of these crimes.

Safer Communities

We were all drawn to a career in law enforcement because of our devotion to public service and our commitment to keeping our communities and the people we serve safe. That is why the IACP has been steadfast in its dedication to aiding law enforcement in these efforts through ongoing initiatives and programs under the Institute for Community-Police Relations. IACP’s support for these programs involves leveraging the private sector to fund current initiatives and to aid in the implementation of new efforts, such as guidance to help agencies as they deal with such contemporary challenges as recruitment and retention, community-police relations, and more. I am pleased to say that this year we continued to receive support for several of our initiatives, which in return, has aided the profession with the daily challenges we are facing.

Increased Global Footprint

The strength of the IACP lies in its membership. Without you, your input, and our collective wisdom, IACP’s advocacy weight would not be what it is today. We are stronger together. Our ability to learn from each other and to discuss our global challenges enables us to grow as a profession, which helps us prevent crime and increase our investigative capabilities. Before I became president, I knew I wanted to focus on striving to be a truly global organization. To me, that meant more than just expanding our membership numbers. While we have hit a record all-time high in membership growth overall and have seen an impressive 18 percent growth in our international membership and a 10 percent increase in the countries represented by the IACP, all within the year, our efforts have extended well beyond that.

A few highlights of our global expansion follow:

• The IACP website is now available in 104 languages and the President’s Message in Police Chief is translated into 5 languages.
• We are conducting an international survey that went out to our global membership in multiple languages. That survey will close in November, and the results will help drive further efforts.
• We have increased our formalized partnerships with other global policing organizations.
• We are in the final process of opening our first international office in the United Arab Emirates. This will be a pilot case, with the hopes of opening additional global offices to better serve our membership base.
• We have witnessed an increase in global interest in programs like the Women’s Leadership Institute and Leadership in Police Organizations.
• This year, the IACP co-hosted our largest event outside of the United States, bringing together more than 5,000 Brazilian police officers to explore leadership development.

Our global footprint has expanded, and our global presence is recognized. To illustrate, the World Police Museum, located at the Central Police University in Taiwan, has dedicated a permanent display to the IACP that will highlight the current and past presidents of the IACP and display their police uniforms.

This increased global focus will continue well beyond my term as president, and I look forward to seeing IACP’s continued growth and progress.

Targeted Violence

We must continue to remember our fallen brothers and sisters who have made the ultimate sacrifice through the acts of cowards who play no legitimate role in a civilized society. These criminals see our uniforms as targets and our communities as battlefields. But their actions, along with the criminal activity we face daily, continue to connect us in this borderless profession. We must send a clear and resounding message that we are united and resilient and will never yield in the face of adversity. Our fallen heroes will never be forgotten, and we honor them each time we put on our uniforms and continue the work of keeping our communities safe.

In response to the epidemic of mass shootings around the United States, I set up a President’s Task Force on Targeted Violence. This task force convened its first meeting in late September 2019 and will conduct its final meeting at the 2019 IACP Annual Conference and Exposition. The goal is to produce a final report that encompasses recommendations for police leaders on how to prevent and mitigate targeted violence attacks, as well as how to respond to these attacks if they occur in your community. The hope is that the recommendations produced from this task force help keep our communities and officers safe. These violent attacks that continue to jeopardize our communities and our officers must stop.

In Closing

As we look back on this year, we can be proud of all of the great strides the IACP has achieved in advancing the police profession. But it is not about how far we have come; it is about how far we will go. I know that with the diversity of your expertise and experience, combined with your steadfast dedication, our future is boundless.

I know that with the diversity of your expertise and experience, combined with your steadfast dedication, our future is boundless.

To all of our members, I’m honored and humbled to have had the opportunity to serve this great association. I want to thank the Executive Board; board of directors; and committee, section, and division chairs and members, along with our past presidents, for all your hard work. I would also like to acknowledge and express my heartfelt gratitude to the administration and staff of the IACP for all their support of my initiatives and unwavering dedication to the profession and success of our strategic mission. To my good friend, incoming president Chief Steven Casstevens, I wish you a successful and productive year. I respect your leadership and know you will do great things for the IACP. Words can never truly express what this experience has meant to me; I am forever grateful to have served as your president.🛡