Kristian Williams

To protect and serve? A provocative history of America's most defining--and misunderstood--institution.

Police and Power in America

Our Enemies in Blue

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.

Jeff Sexton

Very Thorough Research. This book both predates and succeeds (and even cites) Radley Balko's stronger work RISE OF THE WARRIOR COP: THE MILITARIZATION OF AMERICA'S POLICE FORCES. While it cites *volumes* more incidents than Balko's work, and is thus very illuminating because of it, this book has a fatal flaw that is lacking in Balko's work - namely, that it constantly comes at the issue of police brutality as a form of racial and/ or class warfare/ oppression. Its discussions of Anarchism and the optimal state of having no police force whatsoever is great (and lacking in Balko's work), but that strength isn't enough to overcome the flaw of being so hyper-biased throughout. Still, like Michelle Alexander's THE NEW JIM CROW (which this book also cites), this book - initially written roughly 8 yrs before Balko's, and updated 3 yrs after Balko's - is a GREAT read for any who seek the truth that in America, police truly are the enemy of us all.

Our Enemies in Blue Police and Power in America

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