This book provides time- and experience-proven advice for responding safely and effectively to threats to a law enforcement officerfs safety. It relies on law enforcementfs bloody history to reveal what has gone wrong for a very long time — and how to fix it so that no more cops die needlessly. This book identifies the cop killers and the fatal errors that cops make, and it explores how these incidents happen and why. Most important of all, the book goes into detail about how to prevent these terminal errors and furnishes to-the-point advice for avoiding them. These tactics and techniques work. It offers the same common sense advice that solid patrol sergeants have been sharing with their briefing room charges for a long while. It has been assembled by a police chief who spent 15 years as a sergeant. WHY COPS DIE can be used in a lot of ways, all of them useful for drastically reducing the number of officers who die on the job every year. It should be issued to every law enforcement academy recruit. It is aimed across the spectrum of the law enforcement organization from the rookie to the first-line supervisor to the command staff. Chiefs and sheriffs will find it of value, as will those directly responsible for the training of law enforcement officers. By applying practical, potentially lifesaving advice to their daily duties law enforcementfs first-line practitioners can sharply reduce the number of peacekeepers who die or are maimed in the future. That effort begins here.

The massive uprising following the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020--by some estimates the largest protests in US history--thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. It also made The End of Policing a bestseller and Alex Vitale, its author, a leading figure in the urgent public discussion over police and racial justice. As the writer Rachel Kushner put it in an article called "Things I Can't Live Without", this book explains that "unfortunately, no increased diversity on police forces, nor body cameras, nor better training, has made any seeming difference" in reducing police killings and abuse. "We need to restructure our society and put resources into communities themselves, an argument Alex Vitale makes very persuasively." The problem, Vitale demonstrates, is policing itself-the dramatic expansion of the police role over the last forty years. Drawing on first-hand research from across the globe, The End of Policing describes how the implementation of alternatives to policing, like drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs, has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice. This edition includes a new introduction that takes stock of the renewed movement to challenge police impunity and shows how we move forward, evaluating protest, policy, and the political situation.

This groundbreaking history of how American police forces have been militarized is now revised and updated. Newly added material brings the story through 2020, including analysis of the Ferguson protests, the Obama and Trump administrations, and the George Floyd protests. The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But over the last two centuries, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as enemies. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative that spans from America’s earliest days through today shows how a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

Terrorism emerging in South Asia, specifically in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, has had a profound impact around the world. The region remains one of the world's poorest, most unstable, and most terrorism-stricken areas. Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and numerous other militant Islamist groups continue to thrive in this milieu. A succession of misguided Western and local counter-terrorism policies has failed to address the dynamics that underlie these conflicts-and so the recruitment, training, and violence continue. Conventional analyses trace the origin of the region's terrorism to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and American support for the mujahideen in 1980's. This merely scratches the surface and fails to grasp the depth and strength of terrorism's root causes. This book provides much-needed depth to our understanding the original causes and ongoing dynamics of terrorism in South Asia. Tracing today's challenges and threats to decisions made by the British colonial government, it provides a critical-historical analysis of the emergence of terrorism in the region, the nexus between the Taliban and al Qaeda, and the reasons for Pakistan's instrumental support of terrorism as a matter of state policy. By taking this deep view, the book not only shines a light on the ongoing threat dynamics, but also lays the groundwork for understanding realistic U.S. policy options.

This book takes an in-depth look at the phenomenon of police officer suicide. Centered on statistical information collected from cases of officer suicide from 2017 to 2019, this volume helps readers understand the circumstances surrounding death by suicide amongst law enforcement personnel and makes recommendations for identification and prevention. Through interview and case presentations, this volume examines the lives and last days and weeks of several officers, using findings from social media, departmental surveys, medical examiner reports, toxicology reports and interviews with loved ones and colleagues to create a psychological autopsy. With 14 chapters contributed by former law enforcement, researchers, and mental health professionals, it addresses national, state, and local policy implications and strategies, presenting a theory for better understanding and preventing the phenomenon of officer suicide. This volume will be of interest to researchers in policing, to law enforcement and first responder leadership and administrative professionals, and to mental health practitioners and clinicians working with this unique population

An urgent, compact manifesto that will teach you how to protect your rights, your freedom, and your future when talking to police. Law professor James J. Duane became a viral sensation thanks to a 2008 lecture outlining the reasons why you should never agree to answer questions from the police--especially if you are innocent and wish to stay out of trouble with the law. In this timely, relevant, and pragmatic new book, he expands on that presentation, offering a vigorous defense of every citizen's constitutionally protected right to avoid self-incrimination. Getting a lawyer is not only the best policy, Professor Duane argues, it's also the advice law-enforcement professionals give their own kids. Using actual case histories of innocent men and women exonerated after decades in prison because of information they voluntarily gave to police, Professor Duane demonstrates the critical importance of a constitutional right not well or widely understood by the average American. Reflecting the most recent attitudes of the Supreme Court, Professor Duane argues that it is now even easier for police to use your own words against you. This lively and informative guide explains what everyone needs to know to protect themselves and those they love.