How Police Departments Can Mend the Rift With the Public How Police Departments Can Mend the Rift With the Public
Police must be taught that the power entrusted to them is not theirs to use or abuse as they see fit.
Jan 7, 2015 / Editorial / Frank Serpico
Do Not Criticize the NYPD Do Not Criticize the NYPD
It will really hurt their feelings.
Jan 6, 2015 / Blog / Tom Tomorrow
5 Books: Who Polices the Police? 5 Books: Who Polices the Police?
Alex Vitale is an associate professor at Brooklyn College specializing in urban politics and policing. “Popular concern with policing has long been driven by high-profile tragedies,” he says. “What’s new is people organizing against more mundane forms of mass criminalization, like stop-and-frisk and ‘broken windows’ policing.” How should we understand these new battles? Vitale offers five starting points. PUNISHED Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys by Victor M. Rios Buy this book This powerful ethnography, a favorite of my students, tracks the corrosive effects of policing and the criminal-justice system on low-income young people of color in Oakland. Rios’s close connection with them allows him to tease out the ways in which they adapt to the constant harassment and humiliation of the “youth control complex,” on the streets and in school, enforced by the police. What often results is a vicious cycle of criminalization and incarceration, and these young men attempt to maintain their dignity in ways that often backfire, deepening their social and economic isolation. OUR ENEMIES IN BLUE Police and Power in America by Kristian Williams Buy this book This taut antiauthoritarian manifesto provides a well-researched overview of the oppressive nature of American policing. While sometimes engaging in generalizations and ad hominem attacks, its unapologetic indictment of the police provides a refreshing antidote to the liberal pleadings that police can be improved with a bit more training. Williams reminds us that the origins of American policing lie in racial oppression and class division. He looks to communities of revolutionary struggle—the IRA in Northern Ireland and the ANC in apartheid South Africa—for examples of self-policing. HUNTING FOR “DIRTBAGS” Why Cops Over-Police the Poor and Racial Minorities by Lori Beth Way and Ryan Patten Buy this book This groundbreaking study relied on hundreds of hours of police-car ride-alongs in two unnamed cities. While police often say that arrest rates are racially skewed because minority neighborhoods produce crime, Way and Patten found that officers looking to make arrests go out of their way to target people of color for drug violations and other petty crimes, often leaving their assigned patrol areas to “hunt” for such easy arrests. The book further proves that the “war on drugs” encourages the over-policing of communities of color. COP IN THE HOOD My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District by Peter Moskos Buy this book This highly readable ethnography reveals the pointlessness of contemporary urban-policing practices. Most striking is its portrayal of the utter futility of the “war on drugs” from the perspective of both the police and low-income communities of color. Moskos gets deep into the origins of “vice” policing and describes in painful detail the corrupting influence of quotas and other numeric performance measures, showing how they produce unnecessary arrests, undermine relations between the community and cops, and devalue preventive policing. CITIZENS, COPS, AND POWER Recognizing the Limits of Community by Steve Herbert Buy this book This study of West Seattle demonstrates that so-called community policing expands police power rather than empowering civilians. Communities don’t have the organization or expertise to counter the bureaucratic weight of local police. Instead, police/community interactions become an opportunity for police to produce the appearance of cooperation while encouraging residents to provide information. Herbert’s findings suggest that demands for community control are doomed to failure, and that we should look to larger political structures to control the police.
Jan 1, 2015 / 5 Books / Alex S. Vitale
Bill de Blasio Is Not the First New York City Mayor to Clash With Police Unions Bill de Blasio Is Not the First New York City Mayor to Clash With Police Unions
Mayors Fiorello La Guardia, John Lindsay and Rudy Giuliani all survived clashes with the PBA. Bill de Blasio will too.
Dec 28, 2014 / Blog / John Nichols
Lesson Learned: High School Hoops Team Disinvited From Tournament Over ‘I Can’t Breathe’ Shirts Lesson Learned: High School Hoops Team Disinvited From Tournament Over ‘I Can’t Breathe’ Shirts
The Mendocino high school basketball teams are learning an ugly lesson in the boundaries of free speech.
Dec 27, 2014 / Blog / Dave Zirin
Stop Blaming Protests for Police Killings Stop Blaming Protests for Police Killings
While New York City mourns, political opportunists point fingers—but we should really be talking about reforms that would keep everyone safe.
Dec 23, 2014 / Editorial / The Editors
What Does It Mean to Be Anti-Police? What Does It Mean to Be Anti-Police?
Apparently, to criticize the police is to be anti-police. But if I call and point out that the swings in the playground are broken, am I anti-parks?
Dec 23, 2014 / Alex S. Vitale
Social Movements Didn’t Kill the NYPD Officers. A Man With Untreated Mental Illness and a Gun Did. Social Movements Didn’t Kill the NYPD Officers. A Man With Untreated Mental Illness and a Gun Did.
From Bill de Blasio to Eric Holder to Barack Obama to #BlackLivesMatter, right-wing pundits are blaming everyone and everything but the obvious.
Dec 23, 2014 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
Why Is No One Talking About the NYPD Shooter’s Other Target? Why Is No One Talking About the NYPD Shooter’s Other Target?
Before Ismaaiyl Brinsley killed two police officers, he shot Shaneka Thompson. That matters more than law enforcement’s blame game.
Dec 23, 2014 / Blog / Dani McClain
The Deaths of Two NYPD Officers Is Tragic, but Not an Indictment of the Anti-Brutality Movement The Deaths of Two NYPD Officers Is Tragic, but Not an Indictment of the Anti-Brutality Movement
We all should mourn the deaths of Liu and Ramos—but that mourning doesn't mean we become less critical of the police as a violent and racist tool of oppression.
Dec 22, 2014 / Blog / Mychal Denzel Smith