Joseph D. McNamara
Research Fellow

Expertise: Criminal justice, police technology and management systems, crime prevention, international drug control policies

Joseph D. McNamara is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was chief of police for the city of San Jose, California, for fifteen years.

McNamara's career in law enforcement spans a thirty-five-year period. He began in Harlem as a beat patrolman for the New York City Police Department. He rose through the ranks and in midcareer was appointed a criminal justice fellow at Harvard Law School, focusing on criminal justice research methodology. Following this appointment he received two Littauer Fellowships from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. During this leave from police work, he obtained a doctorate in public administration. Returning to duty with the NYPD, he was appointed deputy inspector in charge of crime analysis for New York City.

In 1973 McNamara became police chief of Kansas City, Missouri, leading that department into groundbreaking research and innovative programs. In 1976 McNamara was appointed police chief for the city of San Jose, where he remained until his retirement in 1991. During his tenure, San Jose (the third-largest city in California and the eleventh largest in the United States) became the safest city in the country, despite having the fewest police per capita.

McNamara has served as lecturer and adjunct professor at five different colleges and has lectured at many of the nation's top universities, including Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California at Berkeley. In 1980, he was appointed by the U.S. attorney general to the advisory board of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

He has been a consultant for the United States Department of Justice, State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and some of the nation's largest corporations.

McNamara's books include three national best-selling detective novels and a respected crime prevention text. He is completing a book on U.S. police corruption in the drug war. He has been a commentator for National Public Broadcasting and has appeared on numerous news programs. He has published articles in national and scholarly publications.

He holds a B.S. from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a Criminal Justice Research Fellowship, Harvard Law School, and a doctorate in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.