Jim Gallagher, Ed.D. recently retired as a 28-year veteran of law enforcement with the Phoenix Police Department where he held assignments in Patrol, Gang Investigations, Undercover Vice and Narcotics, Tactical Support, Fugitive Apprehension, Crime Analysis & Research and Records Management and held command assignments in Strategic Information, Patrol, Drug Enforcement and Communications. He also served as the Chief of Police for the Central Arizona Project Police, a specialty law enforcement agency responsible for protecting the State of Arizona’s largest critical infrastructure, its canal system, a 336 mile system that provides water to over 5 million residents across the three most populous counties in the state – Maricopa, Pinal and Pima. Officers from the CAP Police provide critical infrastructure & asset protection, conduct proactive & responsive patrol, gather & share intelligence with federal law enforcement partners and support the public safety objectives of the 16 law enforcement agencies with whom they share jurisdiction along the canal.
He is a graduate of the 245th Session of the FBI National Academy and serves as the Section 1 Representative to the National Board of the FBI National Academy Associates, an international law enforcement leadership network of over 17,000 members.
Jim has spent the last 13 years immersed in the world of sex trafficking, both as a law enforcement officer and as a researcher. As the Lieutenant in charge of the Phoenix Police Department’s Vice Unit, he pioneered a victim centered approach to investigations that prioritized victim care, developed an understanding of their trauma and respected and restored their inherent dignity as people, not just criminals. As the Commander over the Phoenix Police Department’s Human Exploitation and Trafficking (HEAT) Unit he led an unit that proactively targeted demand for commercialized sex, aggressively pursued sex traffickers and their support networks and utilized technology expertly to police sex trafficking in an online environment.
Jim has a BA in Political Science from Arizona State University, an M.Admin – Leadership from Northern Arizona University and an Ed.D in Organizational Leadership Studies from Northeastern University (MA). Jim is a faculty associate in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice in the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions at Arizona State University. As part of his commitment to joining scholarship and practice through use inspired research, he also serves as the Associate Director for Research Innovation for the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research (STIR) in the School of Social Work, has a number of research articles published in peer reviewed journals and conducts ongoing research in several topics related to policing to include human and sex trafficking, police storytelling, sensemaking, leadership, culture and communication.