Having long been a neglected issue, the policing of protest began to attract considerable attention in the 1990s, climaxing in the events in Seattle of 1999. These protests and the changing political climate since September 11, 2001 mean that a new cycle of protest is challenging the concept of law and order and civil liberties. This book examines how new policing styles are developing using case studies from North America and Europe. The volume brings together researchers from a number of disciplines - sociology, criminology, political science and mass communication - who focus on new forms of political protest, policing and public order.

This book examines the beliefs of law enforcement officers who support the use of torture and the implications of these beliefs for officers' responses to human rights activism and education.

This book examines protest policing and the toolbox of options available to police commanders in response. The right to peacefully protest is intrinsic to democracy and embedded in British history and tradition. The police are responsible for managing public order and facilitating peaceful protest and this has not been without criticism. On occasions, the police have found themselves in opposition to protest groups and there have been incidents of disorder as a result. In response, the development of Police Liaison Teams in the UK has presented the police with a gateway for dialogue between themselves and those involved in protest. Drawing on two contrasting case studies, the policing of the badger cull in South West England and an English Defence League (EDL) march in Liverpool, this book explores the experiences of police commanders, police liaison officers, protesters, counterdemonstrators, members of local businesses and other interested parties. It explores how a dialogical approach with all those engaged in or affected by a protest has assisted the police in balancing human rights and reducing conflict for all. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students, scholars and practitioners of policing, politics, criminology, sociology, human rights and all those interested in how protests are policed.

The first international examination of how police respond to political protests. The way in which police handle political demonstrations is always potentially controversial. In contemporary democracies, police departments have two different, often conflicting aims: keeping the peace and defending citizens' right to protest. This collection, the only resource to examine police interventions cross-nationally, analyzes a wide array of policing styles. Focusing on Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Spain, the United States, and South Africa, the contributors look at cultures and political power to examine the methods and the consequences of policing protest.

"Understanding policing, a resource for human rights activists gives background information on policing issues for human rights advocates working on policing and those considering embarking on such work. This resource book is based on the premise that in order to intervene effectively in police conduct, it is essential to have a thorough understanding of policing and the context in which it takes place: both the legal standards guiding police work as well as the practical methodologies developed by police to implement these. Armed with this understanding human rights advocates can make an assessment of police agencies in specific contexts. Such an assessment is vital both to developing an effective research and campaigning strategy for the improvement of police compliance with human rights, and to deciding whom to target whether to follow a confrontational and/or engagement approach."--p. 4 of cover.

Three weeks after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a New York City police officer shot and killed a fifteen-year-old black youth, inciting the first of almost a decade of black and Latino riots throughout the United States. In October 2005, French police chased three black and Arab teenagers into an electrical substation outside Paris, culminating in the fatal electrocution of two of them. Fires blazed in Parisian suburbs and housing projects throughout France for three consecutive weeks. Cathy Lisa Schneider explores the political, legal, and economic conditions that led to violent confrontations in neighborhoods on opposite sides of the Atlantic half a century apart. Police Power and Race Riots traces the history of urban upheaval in New York and greater Paris, focusing on the interaction between police and minority youth. Schneider shows that riots erupted when elites activated racial boundaries, police engaged in racialized violence, and racial minorities lacked alternative avenues of redress. She also demonstrates how local activists who cut their teeth on the American race riots painstakingly constructed social movement organizations with standard nonviolent repertoires for dealing with police violence. These efforts, along with the opening of access to courts of law for ethnic and racial minorities, have made riots a far less common response to police violence in the United States today. Rich in historical and ethnographic detail, Police Power and Race Riots offers a compelling account of the processes that fan the flames of urban unrest and the dynamics that subsequently quell the fires.

The best country-by-country assessment of human rights. The human rights records of more than ninety countries and territories are put into perspective in Human Rights Watch's signature yearly report. Reflecting extensive investigative work undertaken by Human Rights Watch staff, in close partnership with domestic human rights activists, the annual World Report is an invaluable resource for journalists, diplomats, and citizens, and is a must-read for anyone interested in the fight to protect human rights in every corner of the globe.

In countries around the world, from the United States to the Philippines to Chile, police forces are at the center of social unrest and debates about democracy and rule of law. This book examines the persistence of authoritarian policing in Latin America to explain why police violence and malfeasance remain pervasive decades after democratization. It also examines the conditions under which reform can occur. Drawing on rich comparative analysis and evidence from Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, the book opens up the 'black box' of police bureaucracies to show how police forces exert power and cultivate relationships with politicians, as well as how social inequality impedes change. González shows that authoritarian policing persists not in spite of democracy but in part because of democratic processes and public demand. When societal preferences over the distribution of security and coercion are fragmented along existing social cleavages, politicians possess few incentives to enact reform.