1st Edition

The Routledge History of Police Brutality in America

Edited By Thomas Aiello Copyright 2023
    548 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    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

    1. Slavery and the Transformation of Southern Policing
    2. GLENN MCNAIR

    3. Policing in Gilded Age Urban Hubs
    4. MALCOLM HOLMES

    5. Mob Brutality in Robert Charles’s New Orleans
    6. ADAM MALKA

    7. Urban Policing and Race Riots in the Era of World War I and the Red Summer
    8. ADAM HODGES

    9. "Killers Who Hide Behind Badges": Police Brutality In The Jim Crow South

    JEFFREY S. ADLER

     

    Part 2: Police Brutality and Unionism in the United States

    1. Policing the Nineteenth-Century American Labor Movement
    2. MATTHEW HILD

    3. Police Unions and Violence in the 20th Century United States

    LISA PHILLIPS

     

    Part 3: Police Brutality and Race After World War II

    1. Race and Policing in the World War II Urban Riots
    2. MARGARITA ARAGON

    3. American Policing and the Struggle for Black Civic Rights
    4. JONATHAN SIMON

    5. Walking the Tightrope of Self-Defense:
    6. Imagery, Rhetoric, and Commemoration of the Black Panther Party

      CHERYL DONG

    7. "I don’t mind dying":

    Police Violence, Resistance, and the Urban Uprisings of the 1960s

    MAX FELKER-KANTOR

     

    Part 4: Police Brutality Against Immigrant and Ethnic Groups

    1. Vigilante Policing in Asian American Communities
    2. in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

      STEPH HINNERSHITZ

    3. Police Brutality against Mexican Americans in the Twentieth Century
    4. LORENA OROPEZA

    5. Islamophobia: Supplement for Anti-Black Racism and Policing
    6. STEPHEN SHEEHI

    7. From A. Mitchell Palmer to Joe McCarthy:

    Police Brutality In the Fight Against Communism

    REGIN SCHMIDT

     

    Part 5: Police Brutality and Protest in the Era of Vietnam

    1. Behind the Billy Club:
    2. Chicago Police and the Violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention

      FRANK KUSCH

    3. Police Brutality and the Student Movements of the 1960s

    KATHRYN SCHUMAKER

     

    Part 6: The Legal and Legislative History of Police Brutality

    1. Police Brutality and the Nonhuman
    2. THOMAS AIELLO

    3. Brutality at the Bar: The Supreme Court and Police Misconduct
    4. THOMAS AIELLO

    5. Chasing the Illusion of Police Reform under Capitalism
    6. JILLIAN ALDEBRON AND RODNEY D. GREEN

    7. President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing

    FREDERICK W. TURNER II AND BRENT HOOSAC

     

    Part 7: Cultural Representations in Literature, Music and Film

    1. Not Only Compton: Gangster Rap, Policing, and Protest
    2. FELICIA A. VIATOR

    3. Police Violence in Film from Blaxploitation to New Black Realism
    4. KATHARINE BAUSCH

    5. Police Brutality and the Black Arts Movement
    6. JAMES E. SMETHURST

    7. From Dragnet to Brooklyn 99: How Cop Shows Excuse, Exalt and Erase Police Brutality

    SUSAN BANDES

     

    Part 8: Alterity and Brutality in the Late-Twentieth Century

    1. Policing, the Bar, and Resistance
    2. WILLIAM ELIJAH HICKS

    3. Anti-Brutality Activism and Neighborhood Anti-Crime Activism During the 1970s
    4. CHRISTOPHER LOWEN AGEE

    5. The Multiple Meanings of the Rodney King Assault:
    6. Revisiting Grassroots Discourse After the Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992

      KAMRAN AFARY

    7. Police Brutality in 1990s New York City:
    8. The Scars of Zero Tolerance and the Struggles for Justice

      PAULA IOANIDE

    9. Enacting and Enabling Violence: Policing Indigenous Communities

    BARBARA PERRY

     

    Part 9: Police Brutality in the Twenty-First Century

    1. Make Visible:
    2. Akua Njeri, Breonna Taylor, and Critical Amplification of Police Brutality

      AAMINAH NORRIS, NALYA A. F. RODRIGUEZ, MAHA ELSINBAWI,

      ABIGAIL COHEN, AND DALE ALLENDER

    3. #BlackLivesMatter
    4. LOUIS MARAJ

    5. Smartphones as Technologies of Accountability:
    6. Exposing and Investigating Police Brutality Using Smartphone Cameras

      AJAY SANDHU

    7. Police Brutality and the Militarization of Policing

    LESLEY J. WOOD

     

    Part 10: Conceptual and Pragmatic Issues in Police Brutality

    1. To End Police Brutality, We Must End the Police
    2. MEGHAN G. McDOWELL

    3. Police Terror as Totality:
    4. Reformism and the Ensemble of Counterinsurgency

      DYLAN RODRIGUEZ

    5. Police Unions: The Police Shield for Abuse and Brutality in America
    6. PERRY LYLE

    7. All It Takes Is One Block:

    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.