"This book explores the relationships between racial segregation, urban governance, and policing in a postindustrial city. Drawing on rich ethnographic data and in-depth interviews, Gordon shows how the police augmented racial inequalities in service provision and social control by aligning their priorities with those of the city's urban growth coalition"--
CBS News Justice and Homeland Security Correspondent Jeff Pegues "presents an objective overview of the challenges confronting law enforcement as it attempts to reform in the wake of the unrest sparked by the police shootings in Ferguson and other communities"--
The deaths at the hands of police of George Floyd, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans have spurred national outrage-but now what? To make progress on the complex issues surrounding race and policing, Americans must begin a conversation rooted in mutual respect and in facts. Laying the groundwork for productive engagement, Dr. Will Moravits details how police officers are trained in the use of force and the choices they confront. The Blue Divide analyzes the past decade's highest-profile cases of police use of force against people of color and looks more broadly at the criminal justice system, use of force, and the tragic disconnection between police officers and the communities of color they are sworn to protect. A former police officer, Moravits brings a uniquely informed, mutually sympathetic point of view that can be heard by everyone who has an opinion about American policing-good, bad, or unsure about what to do to ensure safety and justice for all.
This edited collection explores policing in America in regards to minority groups. The essays discuss how the relationship between police and minority groups affects politics, the economy, and minority groups’ daily lives and success. The contributors explore the Black Lives Matter movement, the Detroit, Los Angeles, and Atlanta Police Departments, immigration, incarceration, community policing, police violence, and detail causes, theories, and solutions to this important phenomenon.
From his insight as a black police officer, community leader and church minister in a volatile urban setting, Terrell Carter offers a constructive approach to addressing racism, societal divisions, the politics of oppression, improving police-community interaction-and points the way to a more hopeful future
The remarkable story of David Kennedy's crusade to combat America's plague of gang- and drug-related violence - with methods that have been astonishingly effective across the country. 'If you want to read a book on urban gangs and find out why they exist and why they kill each other, read this ... this is a sociology book, but it's like immersing yourself in The Wire ... When Kennedy says something, you believe him' Scotsman Gang- and drug-related inner-city violence, with its attendant epidemic of incarceration, is the defining crime problem in our country. In some neighborhoods in America, one out of every two hundred young black men is shot to death every year, and few initiatives of government and law enforcement have made much difference. But when David Kennedy, a self-taught and then-unknown criminologist, engineered the "Boston Miracle" in the mid-1990s, he pointed the way toward what few had imagined: a solution. Don't Shoot tells the story of Kennedy's long journey. Riding with beat cops, hanging with gang members, and stoop-sitting with grandmothers, Kennedy found that all parties misunderstood each other, caught in a spiral of racialized anger and distrust. He envisioned an approach in which everyone-gang members, cops, and community members-comes together in what is essentially a huge intervention. Offenders are told that the violence must stop, that even the cops want them to stay alive and out of prison, and that even their families support swift law enforcement if the violence continues. In city after city, the same miracle has followed: violence plummets, drug markets dry up, and the relationship between the police and the community is reset. This is a landmark book, chronicling a paradigm shift in how we address one of America's most shameful social problems. A riveting, page-turning read, it combines the street vérité of The Wire, the social science of Gang Leader for a Day, and the moral urgency and personal journey of Fist Stick Knife Gun. But unlike anybody else, Kennedy shows that there could be an end in sight.
Race and Policing in America is about relations between police and citizens, with a focus on racial differences. It utilizes both the authors' own research and other studies to examine Americans' opinions, preferences, and personal experiences regarding the police. Guided by group-position theory and using both existing studies and the authors' own quantitative and qualitative data (from a nationally representative survey of whites, blacks, and Hispanics), this book examines the roles of personal experience, knowledge of others' experiences (vicarious experience), mass media reporting on the police, and neighborhood conditions (including crime and socioeconomic disadvantage) in structuring citizen views in four major areas: overall satisfaction with police in one's city and neighborhood, perceptions of several types of police misconduct, perceptions of police racial bias and discrimination, and evaluations of and support for a large number of reforms in policing.
"Reflected almost daily in headlines, the enormous rift between the police and the communities they serve--especially African American communities--remains one of the major challenges facing the United States. And race-related riots continue to be a violent manifestation of that rift. Can this dismal state of affairs be changed? Can the distrust between black citizens and the police ever be transformed into mutual respect? Howard Rahtz addresses this issue, first tracing the history of race riots in the US and then drawing on both the lessons of that history and his own first-hand experience to offer a realistic approach for developing and maintaining a police force that is a true community partner."--Provided by publisher.
This anthology provides a balanced assessment of whether the American criminal justice system is guilty of bias in its treatment of racial and ethnic minorities. Contexts in which this question is explored include: policing and perceptions of police, sentencing, prison populations, racial profiling and forensic sciences.the diverse theories on disparities in the criminal justice process;evidence of racial prejudice in policing;African-American citizens' and police officers' perceptions of police bias;disparities in sentencing;differential sentencing patterns among juvenile drug offenders;minority overrepresentation in the prison population;the application of the death penalty;racial profiling of white customers in retail stores;misuse of race and racial identification in the forensic sciences;residents' proximity to environmental hazards and enforcement of environmental regulations
