MPHS Attends National Police Museum Conference in Washington DC

During the week of April 15-17th, 2024, three (3) members of the Milwaukee Police Historical Society attended the 8th Annual North American Law Enforcement Museum Conference held in Washington, D.C.   It was three (3) full days of networking with police and museum professionals, learning and touring first hand at law enforcement museums in the Washington, DC area.  The North American Association of Law Enforcement Museums is a network made up of representatives from police, corrections, and other law enforcement museums across Canada and the United States. The goal of the association is to work collectively to improve police museums, collections, archives, and visitor experiences through networks.  This group held their first conference in 2012 which was hosted by the Cleveland Police Museum.  The following conferences were hosted in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Orange County.  

This conference did provide us with an opportunity to share our museum experiences and perspectives about our police displays, ask questions, network with others in the field and interact with a wide variety of displays.  We came away for the conference with a lot of best practices for handling and displaying of artifacts, developing visitor experiences, as well as funding raising and grant writing.   We would like to thank the planning committee of the North American Association of Law Enforcement Museums and the host agencies DC Metro Police Memorial & Museum and the National Law Enforcement Museum.