LE Reading Lists

[CityOfChicago]

Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership This is a good book for understanding how we often either fail to examine our own motives, or how we are willing to make ethical exceptions for ourselves based on things such as expediency or 'small' sacrifices of integrity

Challenging the Law Enforcement Organization: The... This is a deceptively simple book. It is very short and reads very quickly, but the points are important and should not be missed. The author argues that we as LE managers and supervisors fail to recognize our own shortcomings and fail to change ourselves. We also fail to hold others accountable for their actions within our agencies. I saw this author speak. If any of you have any say so in the matter - book this man to speak. It is well worth it.

Leadership in High Performance Organizational... Another short book (about 120pgs) but has some good stuff in it about creating 'balanced' organizational cultures. Details how Leadership affects Culture to create High Performance, then talks about how to create this.

Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing Dont remember if I posted this link before. Best thing in this book is a description of how agencies create internal disaster when they sacrifice ethics for meeting numbers.

[PVB]

Great recommendations! Thank You!

I recently read "No Angels" and it is very absorbing/ fascinating...

Especially for us in uniform: The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo.
It's not so much about policing but about group dynamics.
It made me think how I appear in the eyes of my "opponents" and what I can do to get better results interrogation and compliance-wise.

And for fiction: Almost every book of Terry Pratchett (it's hard to describe what these books are about. funny "medieval" stories about a metropolis and its inhabitants with allusions to current events and history)
I especially like the plot line with Samuel Vimes, Commander of the citywatch.
Although Pratchett is no LEO he often nails it. (I highly recommend "Nightwatch", but you better start with "Guards, Guards")

[patchcop]

PVB - have you ever read a novel from Joseph Wambaugh? Give it a try - The Choirboys, or Hollywood Station or any other. You'll find a few characters you have in your unit in every book!!!!

[PVB]

Never did, but I'm "amazoning" him right now(=

[bulldog1790]

William Queen is the UC BATF Agent who infilitrated the Mongols MC in Southern California (Under and Alone). It was a good book. He wrote another book, "Armed and Dangerous" about another one of his cases where he had to chase an armed drug dealer through the mountains of San Bernadino. Another good one. As far as fiction, I like any of the Swagger (Bob Lee or Earl Swagger) books by Stephen Hunter. The movie "Shooter" with Mark Walberg was based on one of his books called "Point of Impact" and is only one of several books in the Bob Lee Swagger series about a Vietnam Era sniper. All good reads.

[bulldog1790]

Sorry...I'm a knucklehead. Didn't realize this thread is over a year old. Disregard.