A modern nation in a state of total disorder, Colombia is an international flashpoint—wracked by more than half a century of civil war, political conflict, and drug-trade related violence—despite a multibillion dollar American commitment that makes it the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. Law in a Lawless Land offers a rare and penetrating insight into the nature of Colombia's present peril. In a nuanced account of the human consequences of a disintegrating state, anthropologist Michael Taussig chronicles two weeks in a small town in Colombia's Cauca Valley taken over by paramilitaries that brazenly assassinate adolescent gang members. Armed with automatic weapons and computer-generated lists of names and photographs, the paramilitaries have the tacit support of the police and even many of the desperate townspeople, who are seeking any solution to the crushing uncertainty of violence in their lives. Concentrating on everyday experience, Taussig forces readers to confront a kind of terror to which they have become numb and complacent. "If you want to know what it is like to live in a country where the state has disintegrated, this moving book by an anthropologist well known for his writings on murderous Colombia will tell you."—Eric Hobsbawm

“At a time when policing in America is at a crossroads, Barry Friedman provides much-needed insight, analysis, and direction in his thoughtful new book. Unwarranted illuminates many of the often ignored issues surrounding how we police in America and highlights why reform is so urgently needed. This revealing book comes at a critically important time and has much to offer all who care about fair treatment and public safety.” —Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption In June 2013, documents leaked by Edward Snowden sparked widespread debate about secret government surveillance of Americans. Just over a year later, the shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, set off protests and triggered concern about militarization of law enforcement and discriminatory policing. In Unwarranted, Barry Friedman argues that these two seemingly disparate events are connected—and that the problem is not so much the policing agencies as it is the rest of us. We allow these agencies to operate in secret and to decide how to police us, rather than calling the shots ourselves. And the courts, which we depended upon to supervise policing, have let us down entirely. Unwarranted tells the stories of ordinary people whose lives were torn apart by policing—by the methods of cops on the beat and those of the FBI and NSA. Driven by technology, policing has changed dramatically. Once, cops sought out bad guys; today, increasingly militarized forces conduct wide surveillance of all of us. Friedman captures the eerie new environment in which CCTV, location tracking, and predictive policing have made suspects of us all, while proliferating SWAT teams and increased use of force have put everyone’s property and lives at risk. Policing falls particularly heavily on minority communities and the poor, but as Unwarranted makes clear, the effects of policing are much broader still. Policing is everyone’s problem. Police play an indispensable role in our society. But our failure to supervise them has left us all in peril. Unwarranted is a critical, timely intervention into debates about policing, a call to take responsibility for governing those who govern us.

The massive uprising following the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020--by some estimates the largest protests in US history--thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. It also made The End of Policing a bestseller and Alex Vitale, its author, a leading figure in the urgent public discussion over police and racial justice. As the writer Rachel Kushner put it in an article called "Things I Can't Live Without", this book explains that "unfortunately, no increased diversity on police forces, nor body cameras, nor better training, has made any seeming difference" in reducing police killings and abuse. "We need to restructure our society and put resources into communities themselves, an argument Alex Vitale makes very persuasively." The problem, Vitale demonstrates, is policing itself-the dramatic expansion of the police role over the last forty years. Drawing on first-hand research from across the globe, The End of Policing describes how the implementation of alternatives to policing, like drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs, has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice. This edition includes a new introduction that takes stock of the renewed movement to challenge police impunity and shows how we move forward, evaluating protest, policy, and the political situation.

When the bodies start to drop, Jane Lawless realizes it might not be love at all that brought a young diva and an aged director together, but something perhaps more sinister.

Chapter I ONE WAY TICKET Chapter II HONEST IZZY Chapter III THE GRAFT IS GREEN Chapter IV CAPTAIN MURDOCH Chapter V RECALL Chapter VI SEALED LETTER Chapter VII ELECTIONEERING Chapter VIII VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN Chapter IX CONTRABAND Chapter X MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE Chapter XI THE SKY'S THE LIMIT Chapter XII WIFE OR PRISONER? Chapter XIII ARREST MAYOR WAYNE! Chapter XIV FULL CIRCLE Chapter XV MURDOCH'S MANTLE Chapter XVI GET THE DOME! Chapter XVII SECURITY PAYOFF...

With this comprehensive study, written in lay language, David Fellman provides an up-to-date analysis of the rights of the accused, certain to be welcomed by political scientists, students of public law, and all with an interest in due process of law. Since Fellman's 1958 book, The Defendant's Rights, substantial changes in the criminal justice system have occured. The past few decades before the publication of The Defendant's Rights Today have been witness to a striking expansion of the central concept of due process of law as it relates to criminal justice. The subject of defendants' rights is broad and complex. Fellman here explores its underlying concepts, bringing together a comprehensive discussion of the effects of the criminal justice system on the accused from arrest, through trial, to post-conviction remedies.

The Founding Fathers wouldn't recognize America today. The God-given freedoms they championed in the Bill of Rights have been chipped away over the years by an ever-intrusive government bent on controlling all aspects of our lives in the name of safety and security. NSA wire-tapping and data collection is Orwellian in its scope. The TSA, BLM, and IRS are all jockeying for control of our lives. Warrantless searches are on the rise and even encouraged in some communities. Free speech, the right to bear arms, private property, and freedom of religion all are under attack. The Constitution has been tossed on the same trash pile as the Bible. From traffic light cameras to phone tapping, from militarized police forces to targeting specific groups of people, the government is unfettered in its desire to control the American people. Police State USA chronicles how America got to the point of being a de facto police state and what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the constitution and exploits 9/11 security fears to justify spying on its citizens. Stunning new surveillance technology makes it easier to keep tabs on the people. The acquisition by police departments of major battlefield equipment emboldens officials to strong-arm those they should be protecting. The failure of the news media to uphold the rights of citizens sets the stage for this slippery slope. Police State USA tells how we might overcome and recapture our freedoms, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

Police Innovation and Control of the Police: Problems of Law, Order and Community brings together an impressive array of scholars and analysts to examine the impact of the development of crime control strategies on problems of police corruption and abuse. The text provides an historical overview of the development of legal control of the police, and examines the challenges that recent innovations, such as community or problem oriented policing present to the traditional, historical mechanisms for maintaining control of the police. Additionally, a comparative perspective is featured that draws upon the experiences of the Gorbachev era in the Soviet Union as well as on the history of European law enforcement over the last century. This book is instrumental for encouraging discussion and debate of police innovation and its impact on the ability of society to control the police abuse. In light of the Los Angeles riots of the Spring of 1992, scholars, practitioners, and students of crime prevention studies, criminology, and psychology will find this volume timely, topical, and provocative.

Reviews the origin of the ombudsman principle and operation of ombudsmen in Sweden.