Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America (Revised Edition)

Kristian Williams, Joy James

Beginning with its provocative title, Williams’ account of contemporary law enforcement argues that instances of police brutality in the U.S. are not aberrations but, instead, reflect the long, symbiotic relationship between those in power and the police hired to protect that power, a relationship formalized by Tammany Hall in the mid-1800s but that also developed simultaneously in other American cities. Williams–who writes for Dissent, the Progressive, and Labor Notes and is a member of Rose City Copwatch in Portland, Oregon–traces the roots of policing in the U.S. back to the British system of sheriffs and constables, to the colonies, through the slave-holding South, industrialization, the civil rights era, and such mass protests as the 1999 Seattle WTO demonstrations. “If we accept that police forces arose at a particular point in history, to address specific social conditions,” Williams writes, “then it follows that social change could also eliminate the institution.” Specific remedies are wanting here, but so is a body of literature on this important topic, which makes Williams’ book that much more crucial to the discussion.

status	checked out
genre	Social Science » Law and Criminology
publisher	South End Press
publish date	August 1, 2007
popularity	checked out 2 time(s)