An in-depth critical analysis of how ruling elites use the police institution in order to control communities.

"Policing in a Diverse Society provides an in-depth look at historical events that have shaped the thinking of both minority groups and law enforcement officers. Many stereotypes and myths have evolved as a result of lack of understanding, and this book utilizes a historical perspective as a means of closing the gap between the law enforcement officers and the communities they serve and protect. The text offers the reader an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the "rift" that may exist between law enforcement and citizens. This discussion impresses upon the reader the need for officers in training to arm themselves with more than guns and a badge; knowledge about issues relating to diversity is necessary in order for officers to perform their duties effectively and efficiently in America's diverse population. This book is useful not only for criminal justice students, but law enforcement organizations' basic law enforcement training sessions as well. In an effort to achieve the main objective of helping the reader understand and build a better relationship between officers and citizens, the historical perspective of each population segment discussed is included. This second edition includes "first hand" knowledge from officers who are currently employed in law enforcement. They share their knowledge in order to stimulate and motivate thinking that can assist with building trust between officers, individuals, and the community. These officers describe "real life" experiences that they are confronted with daily as they struggle to not only protect and serve but to also build trust. This edition also utilizes current events and situations to formulate progressive thinking on twenty-first century issues such as immigration and the use of deadly force. The overall aim is to provide information that will encourage dialogue and positive actions"--

In recent years, community policing has transformed American law enforcement by promising to build trust between citizens and officers. Today, three-quarters of American police departments claim to embrace the strategy. But decades before the phrase was coined, the New York City Housing Authority Police Department (HAPD) had pioneered community-based crime-fighting strategies. The Last Neighborhood Cops reveals the forgotten history of the residents and cops who forged community policing in the public housing complexes of New York City during the second half of the twentieth century. Through a combination of poignant storytelling and historical analysis, Fritz Umbach draws on buried and confidential police records and voices of retired officers and older residents to help explore the rise and fall of the HAPD's community-based strategy, while questioning its tactical effectiveness. The result is a unique perspective on contemporary debates of community policing and historical developments chronicling the influence of poor and working-class populations on public policy making.

"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"--

Social, political, and economic relationships played key roles in the historical development of the police. The authors present policing strategies from the vantage points of marginalized communities and emphasize the intersection of attitudes about class, race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation with policies. Police practices cannot be class neutral in a class society, nor can they be race neutral or gender neutral in a racist, sexist, and heterosexist society. The key to understanding the relationship between the police and society is to think critically about the role of power and interests. The second edition includes a new chapter in the section on the police and rebellion covering recent events. There is also a new chapter on Latino/a police officers and an expanded chapter on LGBTQ police officers. Without meaningful social change toward greater justice, police reforms such as community policing and training in cultural diversity will fall short of creating an institution characterized by fairness and equality for all members of society. A clear view of history is essential for understanding the challenges a more diverse police force faces in today’s multicultural environment.

The year 1856 saw the first compulsory Police Act in England (and Wales). Over the next thirty years a class society came to be policed by a largely working-class police. This book, first published in 1984, traces the process by which men made themselves into policemen, translating ideas about work and servitude, about local government and local community, servitude and the ideologies of law and central government, into sets of personal beliefs. By tracing the evolution of a policed society through the agency of local police forces, the book illustrates the ways in which a society, at many levels and from many perspectives, understood itself to operate, and the ways in which ownership, servitude, obligation, and the reciprocality of social relations manifested themselves in different communities. This title will be of interest to students of criminology and history.

Law Enforcement, Policing, & Security

With Miller and Hess's community policing text, you'll learn the basics of today's policing environment, while focusing on the essential elements of success: problem solving, community/police collaboration, and partnerships.

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.