Paul Davis
Paul Davis is a writer who covers crime for newspapers, magazines and Internet publications. He has written extensively about street crime, organized crime, cyber-crime, white collar scams, espionage, terrorism, and the military. Davis also writes crime fiction.
Davis has been a student of crime since he was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia. He went on to do security work in the U.S. Navy and later as a Defense Department civilian employee.
As a writer he has attended police academy training, gone out on patrol with police officers, accompanied detectives as they worked cases, observed criminal court proceedings and visited jails and prisons. He has covered street riots, mob wars, murder investigations, and major drug enforcement operations.
Davis has interviewed senior military commanders, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Delta Force operators, CIA officers, FBI special agents and other law enforcement officers. He has also interviewed prosecutors, public officials, security professionals, and British and Israeli intelligence officers and commandos. He has toured military bases, ships, and aircraft and he has gone out on patrol on a Defender Class 25-foot response boat with the Coast Guard's SWAT team, the Maritime Security and Safety Team (MSST).
Davis is a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer (www.philly.com/inquirer) and he is an online columnist and contributing editor to Counterterrorism, The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International. The magazine is a quarterly publication for law enforcement, government and the military worldwide (www.iacsp.com/publications.php).
Davis also writes an online crime prevention & security awareness column called Paul Davis on Crime & Security for www.businessknowhow.com, a national web site for small business people. His columns can be read at www.businessknowhow.com/security
Davis writes a weekly espionage blog and a weekly American crime blog for the Weider History Group's web site http://greathistory.com.
The Weider History Group is the publisher of 11 history magazines, including Military History, Vietnam and American History, and two other web sites (www.HistoryNet.com) and (www.ArmchairGeneral.com).
Davis' weekly crime and espionage blogs can be read at http://greathistory.com/members/pauldavisoncrime/blogs/recent-posts
Paul Davis writes a column called On Crime & Thrillers for the online journal When Falls the Coliseum - http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com. Davis' column features reviews of true crime, crime fiction and thrillers, interviews with crime and thriller writers, and his crime fiction.
His On Crime & Thrillers columns can be read at http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/category/books-writing/thrillers-crime/
Paul Davis also writes an online column on crime in fact and fiction called Crime Beat for The Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine. His crime fiction also appears in the magazine. His columns and crime fiction can be read at www.orchardpressmysteries.com/crime_beat.html.
Davis' commentary on crime and other subjects, as well as links to his published pieces, can be found on his blog Paul Davis On Crime http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com
Many of Davis' pieces are also linked on Books, Inq, http://booksinq.blogspot.com, a literary web site named by London's The Sunday Times as one of the 100 Best Blogs, 2009. Books, Inq is published by Frank Wilson, the retired book editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Davis' work also appears in other publications.
In a sense, Paul Davis' beginnings in both journalism and government occured in the mid-1960s at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where he sold Philadelphia newspapers to the sailors, marines and shipyard workers. Riding in the open back of the newspaper truck, he would pass the fleet of moored Navy ships in the Delaware River and dream of one day joining the Navy, seeing the world and becoming a writer.
Davis enlisted in the Navy in 1970 when he was 17-years-old. He served aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (CVA 63) as the attack aircraft carrier performed combat operations off the coast of Vietnam in 1970-1971. The carrier also visited such ports-of-call as San Diego, California, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Da Nang, South Vietnam, Sasebo, Japan and Subic Bay in the Philippine Islands. He also served on the USS Saugus (YTB 780), a Navy harbor tugboat attached to the U.S. nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland in 1974-1975. He traveled throughtout the British Isles and Europe during those years.
After leaving the Navy, Davis continued to do security work as a Defense Department civilian employee. For the last 21 of his 37 years of military-civilian service he was the administrative officer of a Defense Department command in Philadelphia. He oversaw security programs and he performed security awareness, crime prevention, travel security, counterintelligence and counterterrorism briefings and seminars for the command.
In addition to coordinating security, safety, public affairs and other support programs for the command, Davis also wrote news and features for local and world-wide Defense Department magazines. Davis received numerous awards during his years of federal service, including the Philadelphia Federal Executive Board's 1990 Public Affairs Award for his magazine articles.
From its 1991 debut to the closing program in 2005, Davis served as a producer and on-air host of the Philadelphia Federal Executive Board's public affairs radio program Inside Government. The half-hour interview program dealt with crime, espionage, terrorism taxes, health, the military and other issues of concern to Philadelphia area residents. The radio program aired Sunday mornings on WPEN 950 AM and WMGK 102.5 FM. Davis and the other members of the production team received the Vice President's National Performance Review "Hammer" Award in 1995.
Davis began moonlighting as a freelance writer in 1993. Working nights and weekends, he covered crime and politics for The South Philadelphia Review. He also wrote commentary for the weekly paper. On assignment for The Review, Davis attended the pilot class of the Philadelphia Police Department's Civilian Police Academy and wrote an 11-part series on police training and operations.
In 1995 Davis moved over to The South Philadelphia American, where he wrote news, features and a regular column. The American folded in 1998 and Davis moved his column to The Golden Times, where it had a ten-year run in the monthly newspaper for Philadelphia and South Jersey area residents over 50-years-old.
In 1996 he began writing feature stories on crime, espionage and terrorism for Counterterrorism and in 1999 he began to write commentary and book reviews for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Davis began writing crime fiction and his online column Crime Beat in 2002. In 2006 he began his online Paul Davis On Crime & Security column. In February of 2009 Davis began his espionage and American crime blogs for http://greathistory.com, and in April of 2009 Davis began his On Crime & Thrillers column for When Falls The Coliseum.
Davis retired from the Defense Department in 2007 and became a full-time writer. He is also a public speaker and he talks to corporate, government, student, senior, civic and veterans groups about crime prevention and security awareness.
Davis attended journalism courses at Penn State University and Temple University. He also attended many Defense Department courses on security, safety, management, public affairs and military journalism throughout his years of service.
Paul Davis is married and has two grown children and a five-year-old granddaughter. Although he is a frequent traveler, Davis lives in the same South Philadelphia neighborhood where he was born and raised.
To read some of Paul Davis' magazine feature stories and his newspaper columns and reviews go to http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/site/?/photos/
Paul Davis can be reached by e-mailing him at pauldavisoncrime@comcast.net
