“A well-supported critique of therapeutic policing and, by extension, of similar paternalistic efforts to help the poor by hassling them into good behavior.” —Los Angeles Times In his first year working in Los Angeles’s Skid Row, Forrest Stuart was stopped on the street by police fourteen times. Usually for doing little more than standing there. Juliette, a woman he met during that time, has been stopped by police well over one hundred times, arrested upward of sixty times, and has given up more than a year of her life serving week-long jail sentences. Her most common crime? Simply sitting on the sidewalk—an arrestable offense in LA. Why? What purpose did those arrests serve, for society or for Juliette? How did we reach a point where we’ve cut support for our poorest citizens, yet are spending ever more on policing and prisons? That’s the complicated, maddening story that Stuart tells in Down, Out & Under Arrest, a close-up look at the hows and whys of policing poverty in the contemporary United States. What emerges from Stuart’s years of fieldwork—not only with Skid Row residents, but with the police charged with managing them—is a tragedy built on mistakes and misplaced priorities more than on heroes and villains. At a time when distrust between police and the residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods has never been higher, Stuart’s book helps us see where we’ve gone wrong, and what steps we could take to begin to change the lives of our poorest citizens—and ultimately our society itself—for the better.

"Arrest-Proof Yourself will teach you everything you need to know about dirty cops, racial profiling, probable cause, search and seizure laws, your right to remain silent, and much more. This how-not-to guide will keep you safe and sound all year long." --Zink magazine What do you say if a cop pulls you over and asks to search your car? What if he gets up in your face and uses a racial slur? What if there's a roach in the ashtray? And what if your hot-headed teenage son is at the wheel? If you read this book, you'll know exactly what to do and say. More people than ever are getting arrested—usually for petty offenses against laws that rarely used to be enforced. And because arrest information is so easily available via the Internet, just one little arrest can disqualify you from jobs, financing, and education. This eye-opening book tells you everything you need to know about how cops operate, the little things that can get you in trouble, and how to stay free from the hungry jaws of the criminal justice system. It is now updated with new and important information on the right of the police to search your car; on guns, knives, and self-defense; and on changes in surveillance methods. Dale C. Carson was an FBI field agent, a SWAT sniper, an instructor at the FBI academy, and a Miami police officer who set Florida records for felony arrests. He is currently a criminal defense attorney. Wes Denham is the author of Arrested.

Most incidents of urban unrest in recent decades - including the riots in France, Britain and other Western countries - have followed lethal interactions between the youth and the police. Usually these take place in disadvantaged neighborhoods composed of working-class families of immigrant origin or belonging to ethnic minorities. These tragic events have received a great deal of media coverage, but we know very little about the everyday activities of urban policing that lie behind them. Over the course of 15 months, at the time of the 2005 riots, Didier Fassin carried out an ethnographic study in one of the largest precincts in the Paris region, sharing the life of a police station and cruising with the patrols, in particular the dreaded anti-crime squads. Far from the imaginary worlds created by television series and action movies, he uncovers the ordinary aspects of law enforcement, characterized by inactivity and boredom, by eventless days and nights where minor infractions give rise to spectacular displays of force and where officers express doubts about the significance and value of their own jobs. Describing the invisible manifestations of violence and unrecognized forms of discrimination against minority youngsters, undocumented immigrants and Roma people, he analyses the conditions that make them possible and tolerable, including entrenched policies of segregation and stigmatization, economic marginalization and racial discrimination. Richly documented and compellingly told, this unique account of contemporary urban policing shows that, instead of enforcing the law, the police are engaged in the task of enforcing an unequal social order in the name of public security.

When Harvard-trained sociologist Peter Moskos left the classroom to become a cop in Baltimore's Eastern District, he was thrust deep into police culture and the ways of the street--the nerve-rattling patrols, the thriving drug corners, and a world of poverty and violence that outsiders never see. In Cop in the Hood, Moskos reveals the truths he learned on the midnight shift. Through Moskos's eyes, we see police academy graduates unprepared for the realities of the street, success measured by number of arrests, and the ultimate failure of the war on drugs. In addition to telling an explosive insider's story of what it is really like to be a police officer, he makes a passionate argument for drug legalization as the only realistic way to end drug violence--and let cops once again protect and serve. In a new afterword, Moskos describes the many benefits of foot patrol--or, as he calls it, "policing green."

Forrest Stuart gives us a new framework for understanding life in criminalized communities throughout America. The idea of community policing and of stop-and-frisk and broken windows is just part of the picture, which includes people on both sides of the issue of keeping order in Skid Row communities. Stuart s is a dramatic demonstration of how to understand the daily realities of America s most truly disadvantaged, an understanding that requires a sharp focus on the pervasive role and impact of the police. Policing zero tolerance models in particularis reshaping urban poverty and marginalization in 21st-century America. Stuart immersed himself for several years in the notorious homeless capital of America, which is to say, Skid Row in Los Angeles. It has the largest concentration of standing police forces anywhere in the United States. On their side, the police practice what Stuart calls therapeutic policing a form of virtual social work that is designed to cure the poor of individual pathologies. On the side of the homeless, Stuart finds a cunning set of techniques for evading police contact, which he dubs cop wisdom and which the poor use for intensifying resistance to roustings by the police. The police are tasked with day-to-day management of the growing numbers of citizens falling through the holes in the threadbare social safety net. We see daily patrol practices and routines that amount to hyper-policing in skid row districts. The continuous threat of punishment aims to steer homeless individuals away from self-destructive behaviors while providing incentives to drug recovery, employment, and life skills (in nearby meta-shelters). Minority upheavals now underway across America underscore the divide between cops and the urban poor (almost all of whom are black or Latino). Stuart joins Alice Goffman in revealing the underlying, and often tragic, dynamics."

“Moving . . . Readers will nod their heads in sympathy with this guy who breaks the rules for all of the right reasons.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books A Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year Indiana Too Good to Miss State Reading List 2018 Timothy is on probation. It’s a strange word—something that happens to other kids, to delinquents, not to kids like him. And yet, he is under house arrest for the next year. He must check in weekly with a probation officer and a therapist, and keep a journal for an entire year. And mostly, he has to stay out of trouble. But when he must take drastic measures to help his struggling family, staying out of trouble proves more difficult than Timothy ever thought it would be. By turns touching and funny, and always original, House Arrest is a middle grade novel in verse about one boy’s path to redemption as he navigates life with a sick brother, a grieving mother, and one tough probation officer. “This gripping novel in verse evokes a wide variety of emotional responses, as it is serious and funny, thrilling and touching, sweet and snarky.” —School Library Journal “Touches of humor lighten the mood, and Holt’s firsthand knowledge of the subject adds depth to this poignant drama without overwhelming it.” —Publishers Weekly “Readers . . . will appreciate Holt’s lessons of compassion and family above all.” —Booklist “House Arrest will hit home with young boys and girls, especially if they have ever dealt with an ill relative. The story is touching, warm, and impressive.” —Kid Lit Reviews