ABSTRACT
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Section 1|61 pages
Police Brutality and Race Before World War II
part Section 2|22 pages
Police Brutality and Unionism in the United States
part Section 3|50 pages
Police Brutality and Race After World War II
chapter 10|15 pages
Walking the Tightrope of Self-Defense
chapter 11|13 pages
“I Don't Mind Dying”
part Section 4|63 pages
Police Brutality Against Immigrant and Ethnic Groups
chapter 15|12 pages
From A. Mitchell Palmer to Joe McCarthy
part Section 5|27 pages
Police Brutality and Protest in the Era of Vietnam
chapter 16|13 pages
Behind the Billy Club
part Section 6|61 pages
The Legal and Legislative History of Police Brutality
part Section 7|46 pages
Cultural Representations in Literature, Music, and Film
chapter 25|12 pages
From Dragnet to Brooklyn 99
part Section 8|75 pages
Alterity and Brutality in the Late-Twentieth Century
chapter 28|12 pages
The Multiple Meanings of the ASSAULT ON RODNEY KING
chapter 29|16 pages
Police Brutality in 1990s New York City
part Section 9|49 pages
Police Brutality in the Twenty-First Century
chapter 31|13 pages
Make Visible
chapter 33|12 pages
Smartphones as Technologies of Accountability
part Section 10|53 pages
Conceptual and Pragmatic Issues in Police Brutality