As communities continue to undergo rapid demographic shifts that modify their composition, culture, and collective values, police departments serving those communities must evolve accordingly in order to remain effective. The Future of Policing: A Practical Guide for Police Managers and Leaders provides concrete instruction to agencies on how to promote successful policing by proceeding on a course informed by future trends and emerging community forces. Explores critical variables necessary for decision-making Designed for typical police departments with common structures, problems, and opportunities, this book offers a unique juxtaposition of real-life examples, futures research, emergent trends, and management implications. Each chapter provides a discussion of the professional literature, current and projected trends, and situations faced by agency executives and leaders. Through this multidimensional and contemporaneous approach, the book explores community and political variables crucial to the decision-making process. It describes methods that managers can employ to explore the future and prepare their agencies for possible, probable, and preferable trends and opportunities. Provides specific, concrete examples Drawn from the authors' research, as well as their own instructional and practical experience in the policing profession, this volume goes beyond esoteric, theoretical analysis and instead provides practical and well-grounded strategies for those who aspire to become police managers or current managers wishing to improve their proficiency. Using futures research and methodologies as the foundation for the text, this volume prepares practitioners to meet the challenges of policing and police management in the 21st century.