Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Radical glossary of the vocabulary of policing that redefines the very way we understand law enforcement
This book will arm activists on the streets--as well as anyone with an open mind on one of the key issues of our time--with a critical analysis and ultimately a redefinition of the very idea of policing. The book contends that when we talk about police and police reform, we speak the language of police legitimation through the art of euphemism. So state sexual assault become -body-cavity search, - and ruthless beatings become -non-compliance deterrence.-
A Field Guide to the Police is a study of the indirect and taken-for-granted language of policing, a language we're all forced to speak when we talk about law enforcement. In entries like -Police dog, - -Stop and frisk, - and -Rough ride, - the authors expose the way -copspeak- suppresses the true meaning and history of policing. Like any other field guide, it reveals a world that is hidden in plain view. The book argues that a redefined language of policing might help chart a future free society.
Synopsis
Radical glossary of the vocabulary of policing that redefines the very way we understand law enforcement It doesn't take firsthand experience to learn the meaning of pain compliance or rough ride.
Police: A Field Guide is an illustrated handbook to the methods, mythologies, and history that animate today's police. It is a survival manual for encounters with cops and police logic, whether it arrives in the shape of officer friendly, Tasers, curfews, non-compliance, or reformist discourses about so-called bad apples. In a series of short chapters, each focusing on a single term, such as the beat, order, badge, throw-down weapon, and much more, authors David Correia and Tyler Wall present a guide that reinvents and demystifies the language of policing in order to better prepare activists--and anyone with an open mind--on one of the key issues of our time: police brutality. In doing so, they begin to chart a future free of this violence--and of police.
Synopsis
It doesn't take firsthand experience to learn the meaning of "pain compliance" or "rough ride" Police: A Field Guide is an illustrated handbook to the methods, mythologies, and history that animate today's police. It is a survival manual for encounters with cops and police logic, whether it arrives in the shape of "officer friendly," "Tasers," "curfews," "non-compliance," or reformist discourses about so-called "bad apples." In a series of short chapters, each focusing on a single term, such as "the beat," "order," "badge," "throw-down weapon," and much more, authors David Correia and Tyler Wall present a guide that reinvents and demystifies the language of policing in order to better prepare activists--and anyone with an open mind--on one of the key issues of our time: police brutality. In doing so, they begin to chart a future free of this violence--and of police.