Samuel Walker (police accountability expert)

Samuel Emlen Walker (born December 19, 1942)^[1] is an American civil liberties, policing, and criminal justice expert.^[2] He specializes in police accountability.

Walker was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, but grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. His father was an executive who worked for the railroad.^[2]

In December 1964, Walker received a B.A. in American Culture from the University of Michigan, where he wrote film reviews for The Michigan Daily student newspaper for a semester.^[3] In 1970, Walker received an M.A. in American history from University of Nebraska Omaha. In 1973, he earned a PhD in American history from Ohio State University. His thesis was on Terence V. Powderly, and was called "Terence V. Powderly, "Labour Mayor": Workingmen's Politics in Scranton, Pennsylvania 1870-1884". His thesis advisor was K. Austin Kerr.^[1]

In the spring of 1964, civil rights activist Robert "Bob" Moses visited the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in a drive to recruit students like Walker to go to Mississippi as part of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO)'s Mississippi Freedom Summer.^[4] After orientation/training in Ohio and raising US$500 for bail,^[5] for six weeks in the summer of 1964 starting in June 1964, Walker worked as a volunteer, going on door-to-door voter registration drives to encourage African American citizens to register to vote.^[6][7][8] Part of the effort was to highlight the restrictions on voter registration and to establish a non-violent right to organize and empower in the face of institutional terrorism of the Black community in Mississippi.^[9][10][11]

After graduating from college, Walker returned to Mississippi in January 1965 to continue the Mississippi Freedom Project.^[12] Walker was based in Gulfport, Mississippi until August 1966.^[13]

From 1969 to 1970, Walker was a teaching assistant at the University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) while earning his master's degree. From 1970 to 1973, he was a teaching associate at Ohio State University while working on his PhD.^[1] In August 1974, Walker was hired as an assistant professor of criminal justice at UNO, eventually becoming a professor of criminal justice in 1984. From 1993 to 1999, he was Kiewit Professor, and then from 1999 to 2005, he was Isaacson Professor. Walker retired as a professor emeritus in 2005.^[14] He continues to work as a consultant.^[2]

Walker has said that he started out with a focus on police-community relations. That expanded into the area of citizen oversight of the police, and eventually became a specialization of concentrating on police accountability.^[5]

In 2000, Walker was hired to work on a grant funded report for the U.S. Department of Justice called Early Intervention Systems for Law Enforcement Agencies: A Planning and Management Guide, published in 2004.^[15]

In 2013, Walker testified in New York City as an expert against the NYPD's policy of stop and frisk.^[16][17]

From 2015 to 2016, Walker worked as a consultant to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa, Ontario on a project for the development of an Early Intervention System (EIS) for its police force.^[2][18]

Walker has created the Police Accountability Resource Guide, an online guide with links and resources for educators and organizers.^[19][20]

• 1964: Ann Arbor Friends of SNCC, spokesman^[21]
• 2001-2004: National Academy of Sciences, Panel Member for "Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence"
• 2015-present: American Law Institute (ALI), Advisory Committee Member on Principles of Law: Police Investigations^[22]
• 2015-2016: National Academy of Sciences, Consultant on "Project of Proactive Policing"

• 2012: Langum Prize, David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History or Biography for Presidents and Civil Liberties From Wilson to Obama
• 2018: Academic Freedom Coalition of Nebraska (AFCON), Academic Freedom Award
• 2018: American Society of Criminology (ASC) Division of Policing, Lifetime Achievement Award^[23]

• Walker, Samuel Emlen (1973). Terence V. Powderly, "Labour Mayor": Workingmen's Politics in Scranton, Pennsylvania 1870-1884 (PhD). Ohio State University. OCLC 973331728. ProQuest 302707706.
• Walker, Samuel (1977). A Critical History of Police Reform: The Emergence of Professionalism. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-669-01292-7. OCLC 869372240.
• Walker, Samuel (1992). The American Civil Liberties Union: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 978-0-815-30047-2. OCLC 25048220. – part of Garland Reference Library of Social Science, Organizations and Interest Groups v. 743, 3
• Walker, Samuel (1993). Taming the System: The Control of Discretion in Criminal Justice, 1950-1990. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-195-07820-6. OCLC 26012412.
• Walker, Samuel (1994). Hate Speech: The History of an American Controversy. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-803-2476-35. OCLC 28419843.
• Walker, Samuel (1998). The Rights Revolution: Rights and Community in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-602-56627-9. OCLC 559885444.
• Walker, Samuel (1998). Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-195-07450-5. OCLC 36407878.
• Walker, Samuel (1999). In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (2nd ed.). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-809-32270-1. OCLC 40675103.
• Walker, Samuel (2001). Police Accountability: The Role of Citizen Oversight. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thompson Learning. ISBN 978-0-534-58158-9. OCLC 44876949.
• Walker, Samuel (2004). Civil Liberties in America: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-576-07927-0. OCLC 469328124.
• Walker, Samuel E. (2005). The New World of Police Accountability (1st ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. ISBN 978-1-412-90943-3. OCLC 56334321.
• Walker, Samuel (2006). Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs: A Policy Guide (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. ISBN 978-0-534-61654-0. OCLC 64442729.
• Walker, Samuel (2012). Presidents and Civil Liberties from Wilson to Obama: A Story of Poor Custodians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01660-6. OCLC 809195598.
• Walker, Samuel; Katz, Charles M. (2018). The Police in America: An Introduction (9th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-1-259-14076-1. OCLC 967939018.
• Walker, Samuel; Spohn, Cassia; DeLone, Miriam (2018). The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-337-09186-2. OCLC 954105208.
• Walker, Samuel E.; Archbold, Carol A. (2019). The New World of Police Accountability (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. ISBN 978-1-544-33919-1. OCLC 1090424574.

• Walker, Sam (5 September 1963). "At Cinema Guild: 'Falcon' Moves Fast". The Michigan Daily. 74 (4): Image 4.
• Walker, Sam; Else, John (July 1965). A Report and Analysis of Community Organizing in Gulport, Mississippi: July 1965 (PDF). Gulfport, MI: Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) – via Civil Rights Movement Archive.
• Walker, Samuel (Spring 2001). "Searching for the Denominator: Problems with Police Traffic Stop Data and an Early Warning System Solution" (PDF). Justice Research and Policy. 3 (1): 63–95. doi:10.3818/JRP.3.1.2001.63. S2CID 76655168.
• Walker, Samuel (2003). "The New Paradigm of Police Accountability: The U.S. Justice Department "Pattern or Practice" Suits in Context" (PDF). Saint Louis University Public Law Review. XXII (1): 3–52.
• Walker, Samuel (2004). Early Intervention Systems for Law Enforcement Agencies: A Planning and Management Guide (PDF). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. ISBN 978-1-932-58226-0. OCLC 714810836.
• Walker, Samuel; Keenan, Kevin M. (Spring 2005). "An Impediment to Police Accountability? An Analysis of Statutory Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights" (PDF). Boston University Public Interest Law Review. 14 (2): 185–245.
• Walker, Samuel; Milligan, Stacy Osnick; Berke, Anna (2006). Strategies for Intervening with Officers Through Early Intervention Systems: A Guide for Front-Line Supervisors (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, U.S. Dept. of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. ISBN 978-1-878-73493-8. OCLC 73830385.
• Walker, Samuel (Spring 2006). "Too Many Sticks, Not Enough Carrots: Limits and New Opportunities in American Crime Policy" (PDF). University of St. Thomas Law Journal. 3 (3): 430–461.
• Walker, Samuel (8 September 2016). "Science and Politics in Police Research: Reflections on Their Tangled Relationship" (PDF). The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 593 (1): 137–155. doi:10.1177/0002716203262699. S2CID 145782450.
• Walker, Samuel. "Police Accountability Resource Guide". Samuel Walker. Retrieved 6 June 2020.

• Official website
• Today in Civil Liberties History, a daily calendar of civil liberties events
• These Rights Are Our Rights, an anthem for the Bill of Rights
• Samuel Walker Papers, 1964-1966 at the Wisconsin Historical Society