PAUL O’CONNELL, JD., Ph.D.

Dr. O’Connell began his professional career in criminal justice in 1981, serving the New York City Police Department (NYPD) first as a police officer, then as a Police Academy instructor, in-service trainer and curriculum developer. After receiving an MPA in 1984 and J.D. in 1989, he worked as a trial attorney with the firm of Cummings & Lockwood in Stamford, CT., specializing in product liability, negligence, premises liability and personal injury defense. He is the former Associate Dean of the School of Arts and Science and former chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY. He is a full Professor and teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, conducts funded research, publishes scholarly papers and lectures widely on the topics of police performance measurement, strategic planning, integrity management and law enforcement training systems.

He received his M.Phil. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Center (CUNY) where his doctoral thesis was The History and Development of the Compstat Model of Police Management (2002).  He is also the author of Performance-Based Management for Police Organizations. Waveland (2007) and Police Performance Appraisals: A Comparative Perspective, CRC Press (2012). He is currently working on his third book.

Dr. O’Connell was a Senior Public Safety Consultant with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), Center for Public Safety Management (CPSM) and has provided consulting services to a variety of municipalities and government agencies in thirty-four (U.S.) states. Over the years, he has collaborated with the Center for Technology in Government (Albany, N.Y.), Giuliani Partners (New York, N.Y.) and the Center for Society, Law and Justice (U. of New Orleans). In 2010, Dr. O’Connell received a grant from the Fulbright Specialists Program and the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), to work with the Turkish National Police (TNP), in Ankara, Turkey. He served as a peer reviewer for the Fulbright Specialists Program (public administration) for several years and has provided professional consulting services to the Mexico City Police Department (SSP) and the Ministry of the Interior of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).