John Crowley, ’87, was a senior majoring in management when he learned that a classmate planned to take the state civil service exam to become a police officer. Lacking career plans of his own, he figured he might as well do the same.
That decision led to a career in public safety that has landed him at the top of a municipal police force. Hired as a Brockton police officer in 1987, he rose through the ranks, culminating in his appointment as chief in January 2015.
The lifelong Brockton resident said that until he took the exam, he could never have imagined he would one day be a police officer, let alone a chief. “I was not thinking of a police career,” Chief Crowley said. “I was pursuing a management career.”
But he believes his undergraduate experience has proved invaluable to his work as a law enforcement leader. “Especially now that I’m the chief, I think back on all the things I learned in college, the human services part of it – dealing with people and employees, getting everyone to work together, to go in the same direction,” Chief Crowley said, calling those skills essential to his job.
Starting as a patrol officer, he was promoted to sergeant in 1999 and lieutenant in 2004. He served as acting chief several times in 2014 before earning the official job. His varied roles during those years included police prosecutor in district court, executive and commanding officer of operations, chief of detectives and shift commander.
Chief Crowley, who has a master’s degree in criminal justice from Anna Maria College, oversees a department of 186 uniformed officers and 214 overall employees in a city where crime remains a major concern.
“We are a busy department. Sometimes you wish you had more officers, but we do the best we can with what we have,” he said. “Overall, we have a highly motivated and very successful department.”
After three decades in law enforcement, Chief Crowley’s enthusiasm for police work has remained unchanged. “It’s an opportunity to help people, and to make the city a safer and better place for everybody,” he said. (Photos courtesy of ENTERPRISENEWS.COM)