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For Dennis Bowman—a professor in Western Illinois University's School of Law Enforcement and Justice Administration, and who served for more than 29 years as a state law enforcement officer and commander in the Illinois State Police—and his colleagues, traveling and lecturing abroad provides opportunities for critical knowledge exchange and collaborative law enforcement and criminal justice research. In addition, the international travel, as well as the training and presentations he does while traveling, helps him bring a global perspective to his students at home.
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The School of LEJA also houses the Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP), which is headed by Associate Professor Dean Alexander. Through the HSRP, Alexander brings experts in from South Asia and the Middle East to provide students perspective about the law enforcement and criminal justice aspects of agencies and governments in that region of the world. Pictured here is Shoji Motooka (standing), who attended Western Illinois University in the early 1990s as an international student studying journalism, speaking to WIU students in Alexander's "Legal Aspects of Homeland Security and Terrorism" (LEJA 414) in the Spring 2012 semester. Motooka spent a few years as the Islamabad (Pakistan) and Kabul (Afghanistan) bureau chief and a foreign correspondent for NHK, the Japanese public broadcasting network.
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WIU alumnus Ed Hammer is a retired police investigator and author of the book, "One Hundred Percent Guilty," which covers the licenses for bribes scandal involving former Illinois Governor George Ryan, the former Illinois Inspector General Dean Bauer and others. He spoke to students in WIU School of LEJA Professor Dennis Bowman's graduate class in March at the Springfield (IL) Police Academy. (Photo from screen shot of Ed Hammer YouTube video at http://youtu.be/NJAJ5sVccGg.)
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Law Enforcement Students Hear Homeland, Global Perspectives

June 18, 2012

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MACOMB, IL -- During the regular academic year, a typical sight for Dennis Bowman is a Stipes Hall classroom full of Western Illinois University students or a stack of assignments to grade on his desk in his fourth-floor Stipes office. But lecture halls and law enforcement conference rooms in China, Kazakhstan, Russia or Afghanistan are also not uncommon views for him and a few of his fellow WIU School of Law Enforcement and Justice Administration (LEJA) faculty members.

For Bowman—a professor in LEJA and who served for more than 29 years as a state law enforcement officer and commander in the Illinois State Police—and his colleagues, traveling and lecturing abroad provides opportunities for critical knowledge exchange and collaborative law enforcement and criminal justice research. In addition, the international travel, as well as the training and presentations he does while traveling, helps him bring a global perspective to his students at home.

Bowman and a few faculty members in the School of LEJA (i.e., Dean Alexander and Vladimir Sergevnin) regularly travel to lecture and train at universities and law enforcement organizations in Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Recently, Bowman has traveled to Russia to speak about immigration policy; to China, where he spoke to the Zheijang Police College in Hangzhou about police and media relations; and Kazakhstan to attend a meeting of the Central Asian Regional Intelligence Coordinating Committee, where he discussed leadership, critical incident management and interaction with the news media.

"The work we do and the partnerships we have with various universities, agencies and organizations abroad enable us, as faculty here at Western, to introduce the students to the global environment of law enforcement and criminal justice. That's the main objective. These days, there is a lot of emphasis on global policing and transnational crime, as well as on cybercrime, terrorism and other types of criminal activity, because things are becoming more global from a criminal standpoint," Bowman explained.

Last March, during Western's spring break, four faculty members from the School of LEJA traveled to Russia on a repeat visit to the Academy of the Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation. In 2010, the School of LEJA and its Center for Applied Criminal Justice (which is directed by Assistant Professor Vladimir Sergevnin) and the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board Executive Institute housed at WIU established a research partnership with the Russian Academy of Public Administration. In May 2010, Russian officials also visited Western's Macomb campus.

"Many foreign practitioners like to come to the United States to study our criminal justice models, our penitentiary models and our investigative and training techniques. Western is a good place for them to visit, because we have so many former practitioners like myself who can share information. And the same goes when we travel abroad—we can learn from them in their home countries, as well, and bring that knowledge back here to our students," Bowman said.

In addition to the School of LEJA's research partnership with Russia, Bowman noted that he is in the process of finalizing an agreement between Western and East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai.

"We are going to be doing some similar things with them. The agreement calls for us to share information and to conduct joint research in such areas as global terrorism, criminal law and criminal investigations. Hopefully, too, at some point, we can see some of their students come over here and some of our students go over there to take courses. In addition, we have started talking about another joint relationship with Zheijang Police College in Hangzhou," Bowman noted.

The School of LEJA also houses the Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP), which is headed by Associate Professor Dean Alexander. Through the HSRP, Alexander brings in experts from South Asia and the Middle East to provide students perspective about the law enforcement and criminal justice aspects of agencies and governments in that region of the world. In early May, the HSRP, along with WIU Hillel, co-organized a lecture covering the Arab Spring by Uri Rosset, a faculty member at Sapir College in Sderot, Israel, and an Arabic analyst at Intuview, an Israeli company that develops software for security and defense applications.

Bowman noted that through hosting speakers like Rosset and through bringing their international experiences into the classroom, he and his colleagues are able to give students a broad perspective of the field.

"Dean does a lot on international policing in his instruction, and I'm hoping to start a graduate course on this subject covering policing styles, policing in a non-democratic country, the limitations and that type of thing," Bowman said. "A few years from now, the world is going to be even more global, and some of our students may go on to federal jobs in which there is going to be great opportunity for them to work overseas. For instance, in Kabul, Afghanistan, right next to where we have conducted training, there was a building full of FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] people, and also close by there was another building just with DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] people. There was also another building that had a combination of CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and other government people. To expose the students here to the knowledge and information we get from lecturing and training abroad is going to help them prepare for these kinds of opportunities."

In addition to bringing in international experts to speak to LEJA students, Bowman and other faculty members often host current and former law enforcement practitioners—some of them who are Western Illinois University alumni—from the U.S. For example, in March, Bowman hosted Ed Hammer, who spoke to students in his "The Ethics and Morality in Law Enforcement" class that met at the Springfield (IL) Police Academy. Hammer's testimony help convict the incarcerated former Illinois Governor George Ryan. Hammer is a retired police investigator and author of the book, "One Hundred Percent Guilty," which covers the licenses for bribes scandal involving Ryan, the former Illinois Inspector General Dean Bauer and others.

"For current students to have exposure to alumni or current or former law enforcement practitioners—who may be recruiting and hiring them in the State of Illinois or who have direct experience in the agencies they may get hired in right out of school—it is a really great thing for the them," Bowman said. "Our goal is to prepare them with both the theoretical and practical sides of law enforcement and justice administration. Through our international and our homeland-based knowledge exchange and collaboration and research opportunities, we strive hard to do that."

For more information, contact Bowman at DW-Bowman@wiu.edu. Learn more about WIU's School of Law Enforcement and Justice Administration at www.wiu.edu/coehs/leja/.

Posted By: Teresa Koltzenburg (WIUNews@wiu.edu)
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