"Raising practical considerations for police reform debate, Policing Unrest in Ferguson draws upon officers' experiences, residents' perspectives, extent research, and relevant theory to confront the challenges of policing the racially-charged protests against police misconduct in Ferguson and the crisis of confidence and reform ignited by those events"--

Three weeks after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a New York City police officer shot and killed a fifteen-year-old black youth, inciting the first of almost a decade of black and Latino riots throughout the United States. In October 2005, French police chased three black and Arab teenagers into an electrical substation outside Paris, culminating in the fatal electrocution of two of them. Fires blazed in Parisian suburbs and housing projects throughout France for three consecutive weeks. Cathy Lisa Schneider explores the political, legal, and economic conditions that led to violent confrontations in neighborhoods on opposite sides of the Atlantic half a century apart. Police Power and Race Riots traces the history of urban upheaval in New York and greater Paris, focusing on the interaction between police and minority youth. Schneider shows that riots erupted when elites activated racial boundaries, police engaged in racialized violence, and racial minorities lacked alternative avenues of redress. She also demonstrates how local activists who cut their teeth on the American race riots painstakingly constructed social movement organizations with standard nonviolent repertoires for dealing with police violence. These efforts, along with the opening of access to courts of law for ethnic and racial minorities, have made riots a far less common response to police violence in the United States today. Rich in historical and ethnographic detail, Police Power and Race Riots offers a compelling account of the processes that fan the flames of urban unrest and the dynamics that subsequently quell the fires.

Paul A. Passavant explores how the policing of protest in the United States has become increasingly hostile since the late 1990s, moving away from strategies that protect protestors toward militaristic practices designed to suppress legal protests.

This book is a study of the response that the police take to modern urban riots. It takes a principally police perspective on the lead-up to a riot, the police response, and the evaluation of the police response. The book is based on the development and analysis of four extensive case study riots: France 2005, London 2011, Ferguson 2014, and Baltimore 2015. The methodological approach to the case studies is comparative and includes an interactive framework that incorporates a number of key variables. These variables examine how each riot began, how they developed, the response strategies and tactics used by the police, and how the riots eventually ended. The first section looks at defining riots and examines the riot literature and research to date. The second section analyses the current police response to rioting. The third and final section includes an analysis and comparison of the case study riots, along with an examination of how the police response to riots could be improved. With its focus on police practices, this unique volume will be useful for researchers, students, police, law enforcement, and policy makers.

The first international examination of how police respond to political protests. The way in which police handle political demonstrations is always potentially controversial. In contemporary democracies, police departments have two different, often conflicting aims: keeping the peace and defending citizens' right to protest. This collection, the only resource to examine police interventions cross-nationally, analyzes a wide array of policing styles. Focusing on Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Spain, the United States, and South Africa, the contributors look at cultures and political power to examine the methods and the consequences of policing protest.

Following the fatal shooting in broad daylight of unarmed African American Michael Brown by a white cop in August 2014, Ferguson, Missouri became the scene of protests that pitted law enforcement against locals and Black Lives matter activists. The media firestorm has not waned, and, in fact, has grown stronger in light of all the recent violence by and against police officers nationwide. According to Ferguson’s former police chief Tom Jackson, the uninformed media actually fans the flames of unrest and exploits the situation: infotainment optics have become more important than truth, while social media spreads the news without providing context. Policing Ferguson, Policing America is the book that finally tells the inside story of what happened in Ferguson, and how good guys became the bad guys through media and political distortion. Pressure is at a boiling point. In 2016, America has been rocked by heart-wrenching fatal shootings of African Americans by police officers in Louisiana and in Minnesota, and by the shootings of police offers in Dallas, Baton Rouge, and Kansas City that left eleven officers dead and a dozen more wounded. To many Americans, the central theme of this continuing bloody story is one of racial injustice and out-of-control policing. Policing Ferguson, Policing America brings common sense and a keen insider’s understanding to a complex story. Black Lives Matter, and so do the lives of cops. Citizens and law-enforcement professionals alike feel the urgent need for our systems and procedures to change for the better. Few people are in a better position to explore the issues than Chief Jackson. In Policing Ferguson, Policing America, Jackson tells for the first time the real Ferguson story while sharing his thoughts about the steps we can take together to improve all Americans’ lives, and restore the vital trust between the police and the communities they serve. His well-informed recommendations just may improve this dire situation.

"Reflected almost daily in headlines, the enormous rift between the police and the communities they serve--especially African American communities--remains one of the major challenges facing the United States. And race-related riots continue to be a violent manifestation of that rift. Can this dismal state of affairs be changed? Can the distrust between black citizens and the police ever be transformed into mutual respect? Howard Rahtz addresses this issue, first tracing the history of race riots in the US and then drawing on both the lessons of that history and his own first-hand experience to offer a realistic approach for developing and maintaining a police force that is a true community partner."--Provided by publisher.