Dr. Shawna Coxon is the Deputy Commissioner of An Garda Siochana, Ireland's National Police. Shawna served with the Toronto Police Service, where she served for 26 years and rose to the rank of Deputy Chief where she led three commands at different times.
Most recently, she was in charge of the Human Resources Command, which is comprised of three functions: People and Culture, Corporate Risk Management and the Hearings Office. This Command is responsible for driving the progressive hiring, training, discipline and development of Service members. Prior to that, she led the Priority Response Command followed by the Communities and Neighborhoods Command. There she oversaw the reactive and proactive policing response of all 16 police divisions in the City of Toronto. These two commands include all front-line policing, community and neighborhood policing, as well as the investigation functions at Toronto’s police divisions. They also include the Service’s Operations Centre, 911 Communications, Traffic Services, the Parking Enforcement Unit and Court Services.
Deputy Coxon has had a diverse career working in many areas of policing including child abuse, sex crimes, human rights, professional standards, community response, vice, intelligence and national security. She was a proud member of the Transformational Task Force and is also well known for having implemented Service’s inaugural Computer Cyber Crime (C3) Section. She was chosen for both of these initiatives because she has led numerous enterprise-wide innovation projects.
Shawna Coxon has a B.A.(Hons) in Psychology, an M.A. in Criminology, and a Ph.D. in Law. from the University of Leicester in the UK. She has published and lectured extensively around the world. She has been an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph-Humber for fourteen years.
As Deputy Commissioner for the Garda, Shawna is responsible for Governance, Transformation, and Strategic Planning.
Shawna joins The CopDoc on February 28th, 2022.