Kevin Bethel will be Philly’s next police commissioner. Who is he?
Kevin Bethel, who has gained national attention for his work with youth in schools, will oversee the city's police department. He'll start in January when Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker takes office.
Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker is expected to announce Wednesday morning that Kevin Bethel will be the city’s next police commissioner.
He will oversee the city’s Police Department, which includes 5,483 officers and 828 civilian employees. His appointment comes at a time of turmoil for the $850 million department, which is working to fill 897 vacant officer positions amid a three-year wave of gun violence.
His hire is the first staffing decision made by Parker, who embraced a tough-on-crime message on the campaign trail.
Who is Kevin Bethel?
Bethel, 60, is the chief of school safety for the School District of Philadelphia. He worked for the Philadelphia Police Department for 30 years before focusing his efforts on school safety. He lives in North Wales in Montgomery County, has three daughters, and is married to Rhonda Bethel, a retired Philly detective.
Bethel’s father left when he was a child, and he credited Charles Ramsey, who worked as police commissioner from 2008 until retiring in January 2016, as serving as a father figure for him in the department.
What is his current job?
Bethel oversees the school district’s more than 300 safety officers as chief of school safety, a position he’s held since 2019. Bethel reshaped the school’s police force to focus on mentoring and supporting students rather than arresting them. He has steered the system toward trauma-informed practices and restorative justice and he’s trained his officers in adolescent development.
What is Kevin Bethel’s background?
Bethel joined the Philadelphia Police Department in 1986, where he was first assigned to the 6th District, which includes Chinatown and parts of Center City and Northern Liberties.
Before being assigned captain of the 17th District in Point Breeze in 2005, he worked as a sergeant and then as a lieutenant in the internal affairs and narcotics units.
He was promoted to deputy commissioner in 2008, and tasked with overseeing the department’s citywide patrol divisions, as well as Operation Pressure Point, a campaign to reduce violent crime in 12 districts. He also worked with the city’s LGBTQ community to develop a nine-page directive for improving police interactions with transgender individuals.
In 2016, Bethel retired from the department and began a fellowship through the Stoneleigh Foundation, where he developed a pre-arrest diversion program for youths who got into trouble on school grounds.
Bethel is the founder and executive director of the Law Enforcement and Juvenile Justice Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on rehabilitating youths who might otherwise end up in the court system. He holds a master’s degree in public safety management from Saint Joseph’s University and he was a senior policy advisory for the Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab at Drexel University.
How much will he get paid?
The former police commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who resigned from the post in September, was paid $299,000 a year. Bethel’s salary has not been released yet, and it may not be made public until January.
What are his views on policing?
Bethel has experience in juvenile justice and criminal justice reform. His work diverting and decreasing arrests in Philadelphia schools has attracted national attention.
“You don’t get your respect from barking and screaming and hollering and cuffing,” Bethel said in 2019 about his work in Philly schools. “We’re going to encourage mentoring and engaging with young people, and giving these officers the space to be able to work outside what has been the traditional boundary of, ‘You’re here as the enforcer, and that’s all.’”
He hosted a TED Talk six years ago about dismantling the school to prison pipeline and giving kids second chances. Watch here:
He was also featured on the podcast Reducing Crime, which features speakers who work to advance public safety. In the podcast, he spoke about the importance of data and recalled being shocked to learn hundreds of kids were arrested in 2013 for things like fighting or bringing scissors to school. Listen here: