Tom Wilson

Tom Wilson joined PERF in February 2013 and serves as Director of PERF’s Center for Management and Technical Assistance. He is responsible for the leadership and oversight of nonpartisan, scientific studies on police policies and practices including comprehensive management studies, quantitative and qualitative analysis, performance audits, and organizational reviews. Mr. Wilson has assisted in conducting studies with over 200 law enforcement agencies throughout the US. In addition, Mr. Wilson played a critical role creating PERF’s training program Integrating Communication, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT). ICAT is the only de-escalation training model that has been studied using the gold standard randomized control trial. ICAT training was found to reduce force, reduce injuries to suspects, and reduce injuries to officers. Mr. Wilson has taught ICAT to hundreds of agencies and thousands of law enforcement officers across the country.

Prior to this, he served for almost 24 years with the Anne Arundel County, MD Police Department, retiring as a Major. Anne Arundel County, MD is located in the Baltimore / Washington metropolitan area and surrounds the state capital city of Annapolis. The department is a full service C.A.L.E.A accredited police agency with roughly 1,000 sworn and civilian employees serving over 550,000 residents. As Major, Mr. Wilson served as bureau chief of both the Patrol Services and Administrative Services Bureaus.

His prior commands included the Anne Arundel County Police Department’s four district police stations; the community relations division; the county 911 center (PSAP); homeland security and intelligence; departmental technology and integration (including RMS, CAD, ARS and MDTs); development and oversight of the departmental budget; strategic planning; the training academy; police personnel; accreditation; the crime lab; evidence collection; departmental fleet; and the county animal control section.

As Captain, Mr. Wilson was appointed to serve almost three years as the Anne Arundel County Director of Emergency Management.  His responsibilities included: developing and maintaining a comprehensive emergency management program for all hazards, design of the county’s Emergency Operations Plan, compliance with the National Incident Management System, implementation of the Incident Command System into all aspects of county government, and oversight of federal and state homeland security funding. 

Throughout his career, Mr. Wilson has served in almost all aspects of policing, including patrol, training, narcotics and major investigations. He has received extensive training in a variety of law enforcement, crisis management and emergency management matters. Mr. Wilson holds a Master of Science in Administration from Central Michigan University and a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is a graduate of PERF’s Senior Management Institute for Police, the Maryland Police and Corrections Commission / Federal Bureau of Investigation “Maryland Excellence in Leadership” program and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Law Enforcement Executive Development Association.