police

DARE lost its once hegemonic influence over drug education, but it had long-lasting effects on American policing, politics, and culture.

It was never very effective at preventing drug use.

With low police morale, limited peacekeeping ability and agitated immigrants, the city only needed a match to set it ablaze.

Decades of Supreme Court decisions have converted qualified immunity from a commonsense rule into a powerful doctrine that deprives people injured by police misconduct of recourse.

But the backstory was all-American.

Police champions have long wielded new technology as a tool to project authority and legitimacy, while deflecting criticism.

Three recent books examine the discrimination and hypocrisy at the heart of policing “vice.”

A glaring portrait of the human cost of law enforcement officers who claim to be above the law.

A 1923 article in a fashion magazine shows the connection between flappers and social media youth organizers today.

In the absence of tax dollars, American cities like Baltimore are now funding themselves by fining the poor instead of taxing the rich.

In “Captives,” former Rikers detainee Jarrod Shanahan traces the history of New York City’s sprawling jail complex, and its centrality to brutal class struggle.

As wartime labor shortages depleted police forces, and fear of crime grew, chiefs turned to new initiatives to strengthen and professionalize their officers.

Chronicling the policing of gay life in the mid-20th century.

A century of failed liberal attempts at policing reform in Minneapolis suggests that none of the city’s current proposals will prevent another George Floyd.

The police are an insulated political institution within cities empowered to enforce a racialized social order.

Law enforcement and the urban-rural divide.

When the D.C. Metropolitan Police failed to catch a murder suspect, white residents criticized and mocked. Black residents worried.

How American policing grew out of efforts to control the labor of poor and enslaved people.

Is Trump a fascist? You should ask the same question of your local police.

What I relearned (about well-meaning liberalism, race, my late father, and my young gay self) rewatching the TV cop shows of my 1970s youth.