Wilson, O. W. (Orlando Winfield), 1900-1972

Brief Biographical Sketch

Orlando Winfield Wilson, criminologist, police administrator and educator, was born on May 15, 1900 in Veblen, South Dakota. He started police work in 1921 as a patrolman with the Berkeley, California Police Department, working his way at the University of California as one of August Vollmer's "college cops." Graduating with an A.B. in 1924, he resigned from the Berkeley force in April 1925 to become chief of police in Fullerton, California. In 1928, on Vollmer's recommendation, he became police chief of Wichita, Kansas, a position he held until 1939 when he returned to Berkeley as professor of police administration at the School of Criminology, serving as dean, 1950-60. During this period he also did intermittent police consultation and advisory work, conducting a number of police surveys and directing reorganization of departments in several cities. In World War II, he served in the army in a variety of posts. In 1960 he went to Chicago at the request of Mayor Richard J. Daley, to head a blue-ribbon committee seeking a new police commissioner. The committee, after searching the country for a candidate, chose its own chairman, and Wilson accepted the job with the assurance that he would have the support he considered necessary to rebuild the department which had been rocked with graft and incompetence. Retiring in 1967 with a distinct record of achievement, he returned to California, living in Poway until his death on October 18, 1972.

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