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The Civilian Solution to Bank Robberies

The surprising story of the vigilantes who took it upon themselves to catch bank robbers in the 1920s and 30s.

This, Too, Was History

The battle over police-torture and reparations in Chicago’s schools.
Newspaper profile of the policeman who arrested President Grant.

The Police Officer Who Arrested a President

It was 1872 and the commander-in-chief kept riding his horse too fast through the streets of Washington.
Two men doing a "perp walk"
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Perp Walks: When Police Roll Out the Blue Carpet

Unfair maneuver or a strong warning to would-be criminals?

Payback

For years, Chicago cops tortured false confessions out of hundreds of black men. Years later, the survivors fought for reparations.
Chicago police in a carriage.
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A History of Police Violence in Chicago

At the turn of the century, Chicago police killed 307 people, one in eighteen homicides in the city—three times the body count of local gangsters.
Two inmates survey the aftermath of a prison uprising.

Prisons and Class Warfare

A look at the evolution of the prison system in California.

Stop Calling it ‘The Great Migration’

For people of color watching over their shoulder, the fear of police interference harkens back to a historical moment with a much-too-benign label.

Before Parkland, Santa Fe and Columbine…There Was Concord High

In 1985, a 16-year-old dropout showed up to school with a shotgun. Everyone said it was just a fluke.

What Is Loitering, Really?

America’s laws against lingering have roots in Medieval England. The goal has always been to keep anyone “out of place” away.

The History of Lynching and the Present of Policing

A new documentary on Michael Brown comes just in time.
The April 1966 cover of “Ramparts," featuring a caricature of Madame Nhu dressed as a Michigan State University cheerleader

The University That Launched a CIA Front Operation in Vietnam

A Vietnamese politician and an American academic led Michigan State University into a nation-building experiment and pulled America deeper into war.
Young men in custody after the Zoot Suit Riots.
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The Dangerous Game Donald Trump Is Playing With MS-13

Exaggerating the danger of the group only creates new problems.

The Kerner Omission

How a landmark report on the 1960s race riots fell short on police reform.

Sheeeeeeeee-it: The Secret History of the Politics in ‘The Wire’

An exclusive excerpt from the forthcoming oral history of HBO’s beloved drama.
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Law & Order, Philadelphia Style

The city that just elected a civil rights lawyer as D.A. is the same city presided over for years by "Mayor Cop" Frank Rizzo.

No Rights Which the White Man Is Bound to Respect

The spectre of Dred Scott is haunting St. Louis.
White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' clash with counter-protesters at the Unite the Right rally August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, VA.
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When White Supremacists Strike, Police Don’t Always Strike Back

The long history of law enforcement's complicity in the affairs of right-wing insurgents.
President Lyndon B. Johnson with members of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, including Otto Kerner.

The 1968 Kerner Report was a Watershed Document on Race in America—and it Did Very Little

After the urban unrest of the Long Hot Summer, a commission was formed.

Police Dogs and Anti-Black Violence

Police brutality has been a hot topic in contemporary society, but when did this all really start and where did dogs get involved?
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How the Fight Over Civil Forfeiture Lays Bare the Contradictions in Modern Conservatism

The brewing conflict between originalism and law-and-order politics.
People in a large boat in an amusement park

How a Group of '70s Radicals Tried (and Failed) to Invade Disneyland

The Yippies' takeover did not quite go to plan.
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Ida B. Wells Offered The Solution To Police Violence More Than 100 Years Ago

The answer runs through the history of anti-lynching laws.

Law Enforcement is Still Used as a Colonial Tool In Indian Country

Leaked documents reveal coordination between big business and law enforcement to break up last year’s protests at Standing Rock.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Mass Incarceration

The rise​ of mass incarceration in the early 1970s was fueled by white fear of black crime. But the fear of crime wasn’t confined to whites.

Uneasy Riders

Even before United Airlines, a legacy of excessive force existed in transportation.

Revisiting the Ghosts of Attica

A wrenching new book recounts the bloodiest prison battle in our history.
A portrait of a woman in an crime pamphlet labeled "the beautiful victim."
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The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre

True Crime is having a renaissance with popular TV series and podcasts. But the history of the genre dates back much further.
A line of prison laborers by a railroad.

“One Continuous Graveyard”: Emancipation and the Birth of the Professional Police Force

After emancipation, prison labor replaced slavery as a way for white Southerners to enforce a racial hierarchy.

From "War on Crime" to War on the Black Community

The enduring impact of President Johnson’s Crime Commission.

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