Let's begin with the basics: violence is an inherent part of policing. The police represent the most direct means by which the state imposes its will on the citizenry. They are armed, trained, and authorized to use force. Like the possibility of arrest, the threat of violence is implicit in every police encounter. Violence, as well as the law, is what they represent. Using media reports alone, the Cato Institute's last annual study listed nearly seven thousand victims of police "misconduct" in the United States. But such stories of police brutality only scratch the surface of a national epidemic. Every year, tens of thousands are framed, blackmailed, beaten, sexually assaulted, or killed by cops. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on civil judgments and settlements annually. Individual lives, families, and communities are destroyed. In this extensively revised and updated edition of his seminal study of policing in the United States, Kristian Williams shows that police brutality isn't an anomaly, but is built into the very meaning of law enforcement in the United States. From antebellum slave patrols to today's unarmed youth being gunned down in the streets, "peace keepers" have always used force to shape behavior, repress dissent, and defend the powerful. Our Enemies in Blue is a well-researched page-turner that both makes historical sense of this legalized social pathology and maps out possible alternatives.

Renowned author Kati Marton tells how her journalist parents survived the Nazis in Budapest and were imprisoned by the Soviets.

SafeGrowth is a new model for building crime-resistant and vibrant neighborhoods in the 21st Century. This book chronicles how SafeGrowth and methods like CPTED - Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design - turn troubled places back from the brink of crime. This book compiles the results of recent SafeGrowth conferences and project work in high crime neighborhoods and it describes a new theory in city planning and crime prevention. The book includes chapters on urban planning, community development, crime prevention, and new policing strategies. Chapter authors include criminologists, community workers, urban planners, police specialists, and others directly involved in community work and urban design. Chapters also include summaries of recent SafeGrowth Summits, planning and visioning sessions for creating a new path forward. Chapters include: Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design; Smart Growth planning; livability academies; urban villages and the hub concept; SafeGrowth projects in Saskatoon and Red Deer in Canada and Hollygrove in New Orleans; and the 4 principles of SafeGrowth planning. While the original concept of SafeGrowth was developed by Gregory Saville, the book editor and primary author, other authors expand that original vision and describe a new way to plan and develop cities. The audience for this book includes community development practitioners, urban policy-makers, crime prevention specialists including police, students of urban development and crime prevention, planners, and anyone interested in a new way to create safer and livable neighborhoods.

Let's begin with the basics: violence is an inherent part of policing. The police represent the most direct means by which the state imposes its will on the citizenry. They are armed, trained, and authorized to use force. Like the possibility of arrest, the threat of violence is implicit in every police encounter. Violence, as well as the law, is what they represent. Using media reports alone, the Cato Institute's last annual study listed nearly seven thousand victims of police "misconduct" in the United States. But such stories of police brutality only scratch the surface of a national epidemic. Every year, tens of thousands are framed, blackmailed, beaten, sexually assaulted, or killed by cops. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on civil judgments and settlements annually. Individual lives, families, and communities are destroyed. In this extensively revised and updated edition of his seminal study of policing in the United States, Kristian Williams shows that police brutality isn't an anomaly, but is built into the very meaning of law enforcement in the United States. From antebellum slave patrols to today's unarmed youth being gunned down in the streets, "peace keepers" have always used force to shape behavior, repress dissent, and defend the powerful. Our Enemies in Blue is a well-researched page-turner that both makes historical sense of this legalized social pathology and maps out possible alternatives. Kristian Williams is the author of several books, including American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination. He co-edited Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency, and lives in Portland, Oregon.

If police are the problem, what’s the solution? Tens of millions of people poured onto the streets for Black Lives Matter, bringing with them a wholly new idea of public safety, common security, and the delivery of justice, communicating that vision in the fiery vernacular of riot, rebellion, and protest. A World Without Police transcribes these new ideas—written in slogans and chants, over occupied bridges and hastily assembled barricades—into a compelling, must-read manifesto for police abolition. Compellingly argued and lyrically charged, A World Without Police offers concrete strategies for confronting and breaking police power, as a first step toward building community alternatives that make the police obsolete. Surveying the post-protest landscape in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Oakland, as well as the people who have experimented with policing alternatives at a mass scale in Latin America, Maher details the institutions we can count on to deliver security without the disorganizing interventions of cops: neighborhood response networks, community-based restorative justice practices, democratically organized self-defense projects, and well-resourced social services. A World Without Police argues that abolition is not a distant dream or an unreachable horizon but an attainable reality. In communities around the world, we are beginning to glimpse a real, lasting justice in which we keep us safe.

A fresh argument for rioting and looting as our most powerful tools for dismantling white supremacy. Looting -- a crowd of people publicly, openly, and directly seizing goods -- is one of the more extreme actions that can take place in the midst of social unrest. Even self-identified radicals distance themselves from looters, fearing that violent tactics reflect badly on the broader movement. But Vicky Osterweil argues that stealing goods and destroying property are direct, pragmatic strategies of wealth redistribution and improving life for the working class -- not to mention the brazen messages these methods send to the police and the state. All our beliefs about the innate righteousness of property and ownership, Osterweil explains, are built on the history of anti-Black, anti-Indigenous oppression. From slave revolts to labor strikes to the modern-day movements for climate change, Black lives, and police abolition, Osterweil makes a convincing case for rioting and looting as weapons that bludgeon the status quo while uplifting the poor and marginalized. In Defense of Looting is a history of violent protest sparking social change, a compelling reframing of revolutionary activism, and a practical vision for a dramatically restructured society.

"Killer cops and cop-killers, 'police as workers' and police as soldiers, copwatching and counterinsurgency operations... these subjects and more are examined in this collection of essays by veteran activist Kristian Williams. Fire the Cops! is a collection of several essays written in the decade following the publication of Williams' Our Enemies in Blue, year in which Williams was heavily involved in the Rose City Copwatch organization in Portland. This book can be read as a supplement to Our Enemies in Blue, or on its own, as a series of attempts to apply historical lessons to circumstances as they unfold. Including both reports from the frontlines and reconnaissance into the plans and practices of our opponents, Fire the Cops! is intended to help inform future critique, and further struggle"--Back cover.