This paper reports on a series of interviews and a group workshop held in 2024 that had the objective of learning about knowledge gaps or challenges with the police promotion process for midlevel police leaders.
The workshop discussed in this paper explored the promotion process in police agencies, and how to facilitate the development and implementation of valid, reliable and fair promotion processes in law enforcement agencies. The workshop followed a series of virtual interviews and was held in March of 2024. The focus was to learn about knowledge gaps or challenges within the police promotion process and it resulted in a list of prioritized needs that could be addressed to inform research and policy on police promotions. This paper describes those needs and provides additional context based on subject-matter expert interviews and the workshop discussion. Notes and references are provided at the end of the paper.