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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.
partner

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.
original

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."

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.
Clara Newton at her home outside Baltimore, holding a picture of her son Odell, who has been in prison for 41 years for a crime he committed when he was 16. State officials have recommended Odell for release three times since 1992, but he has not been freed. August 4, 2015.

The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration

Politicians are suddenly eager to disown failed policies on American prisons, but they have failed to reckon with the history.
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How a Standoff with the Black Panthers Fueled the Rise of SWAT

SWAT teams were created in the 1960s to combat violent events. Since then, the specialized teams have morphed into something very different.

I'm From Philly. 30 Years Later, I'm Still Trying To Make Sense Of The MOVE Bombing

Philadelphia native Gene Demby was 4 years old when city police dropped a bomb on a house of black activists in his hometown.
Linda Taylor walks out of a courtroom with her attorney.

The Real Story of Linda Taylor, America’s Original Welfare Queen

In the 1970s, Ronald Reagan villainized a Chicago woman for bilking the government. Her other sins were far worse.
Soldiers around tanks on the street.

Want to Understand the 1992 LA Riots? Start with the 1984 LA Olympics

The causes were many, but police brutality and economic insecurity were supercharged in Los Angeles after the 1984 Olympics. 
Lithograph of the 1871 massacre of Chinese workers in California.

How Los Angeles Covered Up the Massacre of 17 Chinese

The greatest unsolved murders in Los Angeles' history, bloodier than the Black Dahlia, more vicious than the hit on Bugsy Siegel, occurred on a night in 1871.
A crowd dressed in white marches in the Silent Parade of 1917 in Washington, D.C.

Fighting in Defense of Their Lives

The NAACP investigates a race riot.
Protestors confronting Army military police.

When the Military Comes to American Soil

Domestic deployments have generally been quite restrained. Can they still be?
Broadside about the Fugitive Slave law.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.

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