Hubert Williams

Hubert Williams is the president of the Police Foundation, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting innovation and improvement in policing through its research, technical assistance, training, professional services, and communication programs. As its president, Williams directs all foundation operations and is a voting member of the board of directors. He has been a leading advocate for professional standards and uniform practices in policing, and has presided over the design and implementation of scientific field experiments that are on the leading edge of the development of modern police policy and procedure.

A 30-year veteran of policing, Williams was one of the youngest chief executive officers of a major police department in the United States. As police director in Newark for eleven years, he commanded the largest police department in the State of New Jersey during a time in which inner-city deterioration, civil unrest, and drug-related crime plagued most of the nation's urban areas. Williams brought to the job the integrity, toughmindedness, and intellect that had propelled him through the ranks from patrol officer to director in twelve years. Under Williams’ leadership, the Newark Police Department served as the laboratory for two Police Foundation studies seminal to the evolution of community policing—The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment and the NIJ-funded fear reduction experiment.

The scope of Williams' experience and influence on police policy is considerable. His experience in the civil disorders in Newark and his leadership as president of the Police Foundation prompted the City of Los Angeles to appoint him as deputy special advisor to the L.A. Police Commission in the evaluation of the police response to the civil disorder in that city in 1992. Former FBI director William Webster served as the special advisor. Webster and Williams led a team of over 100 volunteer attorneys in the production of a report recommending strategies to prevent future disorders and, should they occur despite appropriate planning, to respond quickly and effectively.

Under Williams' leadership, the Police Foundation has successfully assisted police departments seeking to increase community satisfaction with police service and implement community policing strategies. Such work, combined with groundbreaking research to test the effectiveness of various police strategies, ranging from foot patrol to police use of force, has helped lay the groundwork for significant improvement in the way police conduct their business in decades to come.

Williams sits on a number of advisory boards and commissions, including Rand’s Drug Policy Research Center, Drug Strategies, the Constitution Project, the National Committee on the Right to Counsel, the National Commission on Forensic Science and Public Policy, and the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction. He was founding president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE).

Williams earned a Bachelor of Science degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a Juris Doctorate from Rutgers University School of Law. He was a research fellow at Harvard Law School's Center for Criminal Justice and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.

 Williams has consulted with hundreds of law enforcement and criminal justice practitioners, scholars, and government officials from all over the world. For example, he:
  • Served as Chairman of the Advisory Meeting of Experts on the development of the U.N. Drug Law Enforcement Training Manual.

  • Served, by invitation of the U.S. Attorney General, as a member of the faculty for the U.S./Japan Bilateral Session: A New Era in Legal and Economic Relations.

  • Participated in a Department of State anti-terrorist fact-finding mission to the Kingdom of Jordan.

  • Was appointed by the Secretary of State as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Seventh United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders.

  • Participated in a scholar exchange program between the U.S. academic community and the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

His publishing credits include:

  • "Retrenchment, the Constitution, and Policing", Police Leadership in America: Crisis and Opportunity. New York: American Bar Foundation and Praeger Publishers, 1985.

  • "Drug Control Strategies of American Law Enforcement," Volume 41, No. 2, Bulletin on Narcotics, United Nations, Vienna, Austria, April 1989.

  • "The Evolving Strategy of Police: A Minority View," with Patrick V. Murphy, Perspectives on Policing, U.S. Department of Justice and Harvard University, December 1989.

  • "Police Use of External Resources, " Local Government Police Management, International City Management Association, 1991.

  • "Building Against Crime: Prevention and the African-American Community," in Blacks in New Jersey, New Jersey Policy Research Institute, Inc., 1991.

  • "Why We Should Establish a Police Code of Ethics," in Criminal Justice Ethics, Volume 11, Number 2, Winter/Spring 1993

  • "New Police for a New South Africa, "Policing the Conflict in South Africa, University Press of Florida, 1993.

  • The Abuse Of Police Authority: A National Study Of Police Officers' Attitudes, with David Weisburd, Rosann Greenspan, Edwin E. Hamilton, and Kellie A. Bryant.
    Police Foundation: Washington, DC, 2001.

Williams' professional memberships include:

  • International Association of Chiefs of Police (lifetime member)
  • National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives
  • Police Executive Research Forum
  • Federal Bureau of Investigation National Executive Institute
  • American Society of Criminology
  • New Jersey Bar
  • Member of the Bar, Supreme Court of the United States