1st Edition
The Routledge History of Police Brutality in America
This handbook offers a comprehensive historical overview and analysis of police brutality in US history and the variety of ways it has manifested itself.
Police brutality has been a defining controversy of the modern age, brought into focus most readily by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the mass protests that occurred as a result in 2020. However, the problem of police brutality has been consistent throughout American history. This volume traces its history back to Antebellum slavery, through the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the two world wars and the twentieth century, to the present day. This handbook is designed to create a generally holistic picture of the phenomenon of police brutality in the United States in all of its major lived forms and confronts a wide range of topics including:
- Race
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Police reactions to protest movements (particularly as they relate to the counterculture and opposition to the Vietnam War)
- Legal and legislative outgrowths against police brutality
- The representations of police brutality in popular culture forms like film and music
- The role of technology in publicizing such abuses, and the protest movements mounted against it
The Routledge History of Police Brutality in America will provide a vital reference work for students and scholars of American history, African American history, criminal justice, sociology, anthropology, and Africana studies.
Part 1: Police Brutality and Race Before World War II
- Slavery and the Transformation of Southern Policing
- Policing in Gilded Age Urban Hubs
- Mob Brutality in Robert Charles’s New Orleans
- Urban Policing and Race Riots in the Era of World War I and the Red Summer
- "Killers Who Hide Behind Badges": Police Brutality In The Jim Crow South
GLENN MCNAIR
MALCOLM HOLMES
ADAM MALKA
ADAM HODGES
JEFFREY S. ADLER
Part 2: Police Brutality and Unionism in the United States
- Policing the Nineteenth-Century American Labor Movement
- Police Unions and Violence in the 20th Century United States
MATTHEW HILD
LISA PHILLIPS
Part 3: Police Brutality and Race After World War II
- Race and Policing in the World War II Urban Riots
- American Policing and the Struggle for Black Civic Rights
- Walking the Tightrope of Self-Defense:
- "I don’t mind dying":
MARGARITA ARAGON
JONATHAN SIMON
Imagery, Rhetoric, and Commemoration of the Black Panther Party
CHERYL DONG
Police Violence, Resistance, and the Urban Uprisings of the 1960s
MAX FELKER-KANTOR
Part 4: Police Brutality Against Immigrant and Ethnic Groups
- Vigilante Policing in Asian American Communities
- Police Brutality against Mexican Americans in the Twentieth Century
- Islamophobia: Supplement for Anti-Black Racism and Policing
- From A. Mitchell Palmer to Joe McCarthy:
in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
STEPH HINNERSHITZ
LORENA OROPEZA
STEPHEN SHEEHI
Police Brutality In the Fight Against Communism
REGIN SCHMIDT
Part 5: Police Brutality and Protest in the Era of Vietnam
- Behind the Billy Club:
- Police Brutality and the Student Movements of the 1960s
Chicago Police and the Violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
FRANK KUSCH
KATHRYN SCHUMAKER
Part 6: The Legal and Legislative History of Police Brutality
- Police Brutality and the Nonhuman
- Brutality at the Bar: The Supreme Court and Police Misconduct
- Chasing the Illusion of Police Reform under Capitalism
- President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing
THOMAS AIELLO
THOMAS AIELLO
JILLIAN ALDEBRON AND RODNEY D. GREEN
FREDERICK W. TURNER II AND BRENT HOOSAC
Part 7: Cultural Representations in Literature, Music and Film
- Not Only Compton: Gangster Rap, Policing, and Protest
- Police Violence in Film from Blaxploitation to New Black Realism
- Police Brutality and the Black Arts Movement
- From Dragnet to Brooklyn 99: How Cop Shows Excuse, Exalt and Erase Police Brutality
FELICIA A. VIATOR
KATHARINE BAUSCH
JAMES E. SMETHURST
SUSAN BANDES
Part 8: Alterity and Brutality in the Late-Twentieth Century
- Policing, the Bar, and Resistance
- Anti-Brutality Activism and Neighborhood Anti-Crime Activism During the 1970s
- The Multiple Meanings of the Rodney King Assault:
- Police Brutality in 1990s New York City:
- Enacting and Enabling Violence: Policing Indigenous Communities
WILLIAM ELIJAH HICKS
CHRISTOPHER LOWEN AGEE
Revisiting Grassroots Discourse After the Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992
KAMRAN AFARY
The Scars of Zero Tolerance and the Struggles for Justice
PAULA IOANIDE
BARBARA PERRY
Part 9: Police Brutality in the Twenty-First Century
- Make Visible:
- #BlackLivesMatter
- Smartphones as Technologies of Accountability:
- Police Brutality and the Militarization of Policing
Akua Njeri, Breonna Taylor, and Critical Amplification of Police Brutality
AAMINAH NORRIS, NALYA A. F. RODRIGUEZ, MAHA ELSINBAWI,
ABIGAIL COHEN, AND DALE ALLENDER
LOUIS MARAJ
Exposing and Investigating Police Brutality Using Smartphone Cameras
AJAY SANDHU
LESLEY J. WOOD
Part 10: Conceptual and Pragmatic Issues in Police Brutality
- To End Police Brutality, We Must End the Police
- Police Terror as Totality:
- Police Unions: The Police Shield for Abuse and Brutality in America
- All It Takes Is One Block:
MEGHAN G. McDOWELL
Reformism and the Ensemble of Counterinsurgency
DYLAN RODRIGUEZ
PERRY LYLE
A Case Study of the History of Police Brutality in Public Health
ALYASAH ALI SEWELL
Biography
Thomas Aiello is professor of history and Africana studies at Valdosta State University. He is the author of more than 20 books and dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles. He holds PhDs in history and anthrozoology.