A study of the municipal police force in a midwestern city.

Criminology Explains Police Violence offers a concise and targeted overview of criminological theory applied to the phenomenon of police violence. In this engaging and accessible book, Philip M. Stinson, Sr. highlights the similarities and differences among criminological theories, and provides linkages across explanatory levels and across time and geography to explain police violence. This book is appropriate as a resource in criminology, policing, and criminal justice special topic courses, as well as a variety of violence and police courses such as policing, policing administration, police-community relations, police misconduct, and violence in society. Stinson uses examples from his own research to explore police violence, acknowledging the difficulty in studying the topic because violence is often seen as a normal part of policing.

Although the prevalence of police-citizen conflict has diminished in recent decades, police use of excessive force remains a concern of police departments nationwide. This timely book focuses on what is known and what still needs to be learned to understand, prevent, and remediate police abuse of force. The topics covered include: a theory of police abuse of force; the causes of police brutality; measures of its prevalence; the violence-prone police officer; public opinion about police abuse of force; the issue of race; officer selection, training, and attitudes; police unions and police culture; administrative review; procedural justice and the review of citizen complaints; the role of lawsuits; and a survey of police brutality abroad. In the final chapter Geller and Toch suggest new directions for research and practical innovations in law enforcement, from which both police and citizens can benefit. The contributors to this volume are scholars of criminology, criminal justice, social psychology, law, and public administration; former police managers; a police union leader; civilian oversight agency administrators and analysts; civil liberties advocates; police litigation expert witnesses; and media commentators. The combination of theoretical and practical perspectives makes this book ideal for students and scholars of democratic policing and for those in police departments, government, and the media charged with addressing and understanding the problem of improper exercise of force.

An instant national best seller A persuasive primer on police abolition from two veteran organizers “One of the world’s most prominent advocates, organizers and political educators of the [abolitionist] framework.” —NBCNews.com on Mariame Kaba In this powerful call to action, New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba and attorney and organizer Andrea J. Ritchie detail why policing doesn’t stop violence, instead perpetuating widespread harm; outline the many failures of contemporary police reforms; and explore demands to defund police, divest from policing, and invest in community resources to create greater safety through a Black feminist lens. Centering survivors of state, interpersonal, and community-based violence, and highlighting uprisings, campaigns, and community-based projects, No More Police makes a compelling case for a world where the tools required to prevent, interrupt, and transform violence in all its forms are abundant. Part handbook, part road map, No More Police calls on us to turn away from systems that perpetrate violence in the name of ending it toward a world where violence is the exception, and safe, well-resourced and thriving communities are the rule.

“A passionate, incisive critique of the many ways in which women and girls of color are systematically erased or marginalized in discussions of police violence.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow Invisible No More is a timely examination of how Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. By placing the individual stories of Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Dajerria Becton, Monica Jones, and Mya Hall in the broader context of the twin epidemics of police violence and mass incarceration, Andrea Ritchie documents the evolution of movements centered around women’s experiences of policing. Featuring a powerful forward by activist Angela Davis, Invisible No More is an essential exposé on police violence against WOC that demands a radical rethinking of our visions of safety—and the means we devote to achieving it.

Winner of the American Society of Journalists and Authors' prestigious Arlene Book Award. In "Police Wife," award-winning investigative journalist Alex Roslin takes readers inside the tightly closed police world and one of its most explosive secrets: domestic violence in up to 40% of police homes, which departments mostly ignore or let slide.

This book examines the beliefs of law enforcement officers who support the use of torture and the implications of these beliefs for officers' responses to human rights activism and education.