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Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America
Let's begin with the 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. Kristian Williams is the author of several books, including American Torture and the Logic of Domination . He co-edited Life During Resisting Counterinsurgency , and lives in Portland, Oregon.
592 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2003
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3098 people want to read
About the author
Kristian Williams
18 books46 followersmember of Rose City Copwatch in Portland, Oregon, and of the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
December 28, 2014
This is not some emotional anti-police rant/manifesto. It is a very measured and well researched piece of theory. Police are a relatively new phenomenon in human society and Kristian Williams shows how they are only necessary to protect capitalist elites. Our Enemies In Blue Traces the genealogy of the police state from its beginnings from antebellum slave patrols to the modern monolith we know it as today.
Police in America got boosts in legitimacy and power during the machine politics of the early 19th century, from the rise in "professionalism" following the political machines' collapse, from unionization in the early 20th century, from lessons learned during the strife of the 1960's, and most recently from 9/11. And Williams documents this all with true journalistic objectivity and fine-tooth detail. There are 100+ footnotes per chapter.
We now find ourselves in a spot as a nation where most people cannot fathom an alternative to the police state. The one thing this book lacks is viable alternatives to the critiques it makes. But it is such a dense piece of non-fiction, it is clear that to describe alternatives would require a whole other book. Williams does point to some examples as proof that alternatives are realistic though. The Seattle General Strike of 1919, post-Apartheid South Africa, and Northern Ireland all show how life without police is not only possible, but preferable.
Police in America got boosts in legitimacy and power during the machine politics of the early 19th century, from the rise in "professionalism" following the political machines' collapse, from unionization in the early 20th century, from lessons learned during the strife of the 1960's, and most recently from 9/11. And Williams documents this all with true journalistic objectivity and fine-tooth detail. There are 100+ footnotes per chapter.
We now find ourselves in a spot as a nation where most people cannot fathom an alternative to the police state. The one thing this book lacks is viable alternatives to the critiques it makes. But it is such a dense piece of non-fiction, it is clear that to describe alternatives would require a whole other book. Williams does point to some examples as proof that alternatives are realistic though. The Seattle General Strike of 1919, post-Apartheid South Africa, and Northern Ireland all show how life without police is not only possible, but preferable.
December 4, 2011
this is a must read. couple with The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and you will have a clear understanding of many aspects of the current criminal justice system from cops to courts to prisons and beyond. this book in particular is very enlightening and gives great ammo against the mainstream view of the nature and the role of the cops. they are, in fact, not our friends and this book will explain why and more importantly, how this is not accidental.
August 16, 2016
Our Enemies in Blue makes a five-star case. As a methodical, scathing indictment of the history, purpose, and origin of the U.S. police, I have never seen such a well-researched and calculated primer from Day 1 to Day Now. The case is so startlingly made that certain facets of it seem somewhat gratuitous, but if you do enjoy a lacerating parade of absolutely damning critiques with accompanying evidence, there's much schadenfreude in which to relish while reading the book.
There are different arcs to the book, some more enjoyable to others but preferences seem to vary. The first third is tracing the origin of a police force in the United States from its pre-Constitution heyday into a fully-functional and highly organized 'arm' of the state; the middle third painstakingly chronicles how the police function as a right-wing arm against civil rights, labor rights, LGBT rights, and just about any other left-wing and/or progressive cause for citizen equality; the last third deals primarily with contemporary issues of militarization, a brilliant cautionary tale about the subtle (and not-so-subtle) damages wrought by this trend toward community policing, and lastly the gathering of intelligence for its own sake. Needless to say, the critiques against the police as an institution are well-backed, mind-expanding, and practically endless. I'm particularly thankful for Kristian Williams's ability to examine how community policing extends state authority and pinpoints a new-found ability to control other aspects of civil society. Its status as a hegemony is proven with logical virtuosity, bolstered by the fact that the word is used - gasp! - correctly.
I do recommend this book for people who may be wary of a daunting "preaching to the choir" effect, because I promise there are facets to police corruption and brutality that are subtle, behind-the scenes, oftentimes surprisingly pervasive and other times weirdly unsung. It opens one's eyes as to the why and how, not simply the "what." In short, it's an opportunity to see how deep the rabbit-hole goes, and can still thrill by making familiar claims by making those claims with such authority.
Does this mean that the police as individuals do not have functions or have never been of benefit to me personally? Of course not. There is a blurb on the back of the book that thinks it ought to be mandatory reading for new recruits. While I acknowledge that this sort of feeds into the idea of dissent being co-opted by this larger institution, I do see the reviewers' point: any opposing viewpoint this well-voiced is simply worth the edification, and it's also a startling chronicle of the mistakes accumulated by standard operating procedure. There's a wealth of opportunity here for learning experience (the baiting book title be damned -- 'Police and Power in America' is a great sub-title that I feel is more indicative of the book's subject matter).
The book does not come without its flaws, however. Occasionally there are pockets in the middle chapters that rely too much on quoting the political and sociological theory of others rather than the hard evidence of the police's actions at that time, and Kristian Williams's talents are a bit under-utilized in these sections because Williams simply summarizes the quoted material. Certain sections here and there tend to banish the specific evidence to the footnotes, with the saving grace that the facts are there. Thankfully, the majority of the book gives ample specific evidence -- these chunks are often the most satisfying and occur very frequently -- but in some sections earlier on I found the balance not to be in the book's favor. Too much of the call-and-response with the quoted theory and the summary resembled an echo chamber and could have easily been edited.
I also found the afterword to be a bit unsatisfying. While I admire the ambition of prescribing a thoughtful diagnosis, sometimes writers place the onus on themselves to answer the tried-and-true "Well, do you have a better idea?" The fact of the matter is: Williams does not, and I think taking on the burden is unnecessary. Williams does chronicle some laudable and historical attempts at pursuing that better idea, which gave the afterword considerable potential, but there's a pretty galling part when Williams addresses the community-organized police created for the safety of Blacks in South Africa in the apartheid era. This organization still exists, and Williams praises them even if there have been slight aberrations in administering "brutal punishments." The endnote to this quote in the book refers to how many who have committed misdemeanors had a tire set around their necks and set on fire. Williams continues by quoting polling data that the community would rather call this force than the official state police.
Obviously, police-sanctioned lynching in the United States is the low-hanging-fruit example by which violence-through-law can match this practice of "necklacing" (or exceed it). However, it's the method of suppressing this fact to the endnotes while trying to show this operation as a step in the right direction that I find troublesome; furthermore, appealing to the survey opinion just reeks of an ad populum fallacy, a disappointment in a work that tends toward logical rigor. (Williams commits an A > B, therefore A > ~B fallacy earlier in the afterword, which after a string of hermetically sealed points was outright frustrating).
Save the occasional misstep and the rare lapse into the heavy use of anarchist jargon (e.g., there is a section where the rise of the 'political machine' becomes a tiresome cadence), the book is a stunning aggregation and survey of public-police relations with so many fresh, unsung, and generally unheard insights in the public discourse. In this way, it is invaluable, but there are too many aspects of the book that one needs to resist against or check against while reading it to ensure its full impact. Its flow as a book is not as seamless as most of its arguments are, for sure, but believe me, the takeaway is staggering.
There are different arcs to the book, some more enjoyable to others but preferences seem to vary. The first third is tracing the origin of a police force in the United States from its pre-Constitution heyday into a fully-functional and highly organized 'arm' of the state; the middle third painstakingly chronicles how the police function as a right-wing arm against civil rights, labor rights, LGBT rights, and just about any other left-wing and/or progressive cause for citizen equality; the last third deals primarily with contemporary issues of militarization, a brilliant cautionary tale about the subtle (and not-so-subtle) damages wrought by this trend toward community policing, and lastly the gathering of intelligence for its own sake. Needless to say, the critiques against the police as an institution are well-backed, mind-expanding, and practically endless. I'm particularly thankful for Kristian Williams's ability to examine how community policing extends state authority and pinpoints a new-found ability to control other aspects of civil society. Its status as a hegemony is proven with logical virtuosity, bolstered by the fact that the word is used - gasp! - correctly.
I do recommend this book for people who may be wary of a daunting "preaching to the choir" effect, because I promise there are facets to police corruption and brutality that are subtle, behind-the scenes, oftentimes surprisingly pervasive and other times weirdly unsung. It opens one's eyes as to the why and how, not simply the "what." In short, it's an opportunity to see how deep the rabbit-hole goes, and can still thrill by making familiar claims by making those claims with such authority.
Does this mean that the police as individuals do not have functions or have never been of benefit to me personally? Of course not. There is a blurb on the back of the book that thinks it ought to be mandatory reading for new recruits. While I acknowledge that this sort of feeds into the idea of dissent being co-opted by this larger institution, I do see the reviewers' point: any opposing viewpoint this well-voiced is simply worth the edification, and it's also a startling chronicle of the mistakes accumulated by standard operating procedure. There's a wealth of opportunity here for learning experience (the baiting book title be damned -- 'Police and Power in America' is a great sub-title that I feel is more indicative of the book's subject matter).
The book does not come without its flaws, however. Occasionally there are pockets in the middle chapters that rely too much on quoting the political and sociological theory of others rather than the hard evidence of the police's actions at that time, and Kristian Williams's talents are a bit under-utilized in these sections because Williams simply summarizes the quoted material. Certain sections here and there tend to banish the specific evidence to the footnotes, with the saving grace that the facts are there. Thankfully, the majority of the book gives ample specific evidence -- these chunks are often the most satisfying and occur very frequently -- but in some sections earlier on I found the balance not to be in the book's favor. Too much of the call-and-response with the quoted theory and the summary resembled an echo chamber and could have easily been edited.
I also found the afterword to be a bit unsatisfying. While I admire the ambition of prescribing a thoughtful diagnosis, sometimes writers place the onus on themselves to answer the tried-and-true "Well, do you have a better idea?" The fact of the matter is: Williams does not, and I think taking on the burden is unnecessary. Williams does chronicle some laudable and historical attempts at pursuing that better idea, which gave the afterword considerable potential, but there's a pretty galling part when Williams addresses the community-organized police created for the safety of Blacks in South Africa in the apartheid era. This organization still exists, and Williams praises them even if there have been slight aberrations in administering "brutal punishments." The endnote to this quote in the book refers to how many who have committed misdemeanors had a tire set around their necks and set on fire. Williams continues by quoting polling data that the community would rather call this force than the official state police.
Obviously, police-sanctioned lynching in the United States is the low-hanging-fruit example by which violence-through-law can match this practice of "necklacing" (or exceed it). However, it's the method of suppressing this fact to the endnotes while trying to show this operation as a step in the right direction that I find troublesome; furthermore, appealing to the survey opinion just reeks of an ad populum fallacy, a disappointment in a work that tends toward logical rigor. (Williams commits an A > B, therefore A > ~B fallacy earlier in the afterword, which after a string of hermetically sealed points was outright frustrating).
Save the occasional misstep and the rare lapse into the heavy use of anarchist jargon (e.g., there is a section where the rise of the 'political machine' becomes a tiresome cadence), the book is a stunning aggregation and survey of public-police relations with so many fresh, unsung, and generally unheard insights in the public discourse. In this way, it is invaluable, but there are too many aspects of the book that one needs to resist against or check against while reading it to ensure its full impact. Its flow as a book is not as seamless as most of its arguments are, for sure, but believe me, the takeaway is staggering.
February 22, 2014
Here's a list of the chapters:
One
Police Brutality in Theory and Practice
Two
The Origins of American Policing
Three
The Genesis of a Policed Society
Four
Cops and Klan, Hand in Hand
Five
The Natural Enemy of the Working Class
Six
Police Autonomy and Blue Power
Seven
Secret Police, Red Squads, and the Strategy
of Permanent Repression
Eight
Riot Police or Police Riots':,
Nine
Your Friendly Neighborhood Police State
Afterword
Making Police Obsolete
I really enjoyed the read, finally helped me to match my politics to the history of police, at least in the U.S. Now if only he'd write a book for Canada! But seriously, pretty radical politics here. I could count the questionably liberal statements on one hand. Pretty essential read, I think I'll try to get a copy.
One
Police Brutality in Theory and Practice
Two
The Origins of American Policing
Three
The Genesis of a Policed Society
Four
Cops and Klan, Hand in Hand
Five
The Natural Enemy of the Working Class
Six
Police Autonomy and Blue Power
Seven
Secret Police, Red Squads, and the Strategy
of Permanent Repression
Eight
Riot Police or Police Riots':,
Nine
Your Friendly Neighborhood Police State
Afterword
Making Police Obsolete
I really enjoyed the read, finally helped me to match my politics to the history of police, at least in the U.S. Now if only he'd write a book for Canada! But seriously, pretty radical politics here. I could count the questionably liberal statements on one hand. Pretty essential read, I think I'll try to get a copy.
July 27, 2015
IN-FUCKING-CREDIBLE! As I was writing a 50+ page report on the history of rochester's police accountability systems, I had the pleasure of finally getting to read this gem. If you want a solid analysis and history of the origins of police and where they are headed, from an abolitionist position, READ THIS BOOK.
The "Rotten Apple" theory...
“Given such pervasive violence, it is astonishing that discussions of police brutality so frequently focus on the behavior of individual officers. Commonly called the 'Rotten Apple' theory, the explanation of police misconduct favored by police commanders and their ideological allies holds that police abuse is exceptional, that the officers who misuse their power are a tiny minority, and that it is unfair to judge other cops (or the department as a whole) by the misbehavior of the few. This is a handy tool for diverting attention away from the institution, its structure, practices, and social role, pushing the blame, instead, onto some few of its agents. It is, in other words, a means of protecting the organization from scrutiny, and of avoiding change.”
Definitions of force...
“The study of police brutality faces any number of methodological barriers, not the least of which is the problem of defining it. There is no standard definition, nor is there one way of measuring force and excessive force. As a consequence, different studies produce very different results, and these results are difficult to compare.” And later down the page, “Things get even stickier when general patterns of violence are scrutinized, even where no particular encounter rises to the level of official misconduct. 'Use of excessive force [sic] means that police applied too much force in a given incident, while excessive use of force [sic] means that police apply force legally in too many incidents.'While the former is more likely to grab headlines, it is the latter that makes the largest contribution to the community's reservoir of grievances against the police. But, since the force in question is within the bounds of policy, the excessive use of force is more difficult to address from the perspective of discipline and administration. All of this controversy and confusion points to a very simple fact: Police brutality is a normative construction. It involves an evaluation, a judgement, and not simply a collection of facts.”
On community policing...
“The overall result of these efforts is to increase the police role in the community, meaning that the coercive apparatus of the state will be more involved with daily life.” He calls this a “smarter approach to repression,” not “demilitarization, liberalization, or democratization.” He writes, with regards to the more recent use of the term “community policing,” “The goal of community policing is to reduce resistance before force is required.” However, he also emphasizes that the dual strategy of community policing and militarization actually make the police “less tolerant of resistance and disorder, [and] even more forceful in their own demands.”
Just great. Very excited to hear that a new, expanded, and updated version is being printed in August. Don't forget to check out his latest "Fire the Cops."
Totally love this book. So great.
The "Rotten Apple" theory...
“Given such pervasive violence, it is astonishing that discussions of police brutality so frequently focus on the behavior of individual officers. Commonly called the 'Rotten Apple' theory, the explanation of police misconduct favored by police commanders and their ideological allies holds that police abuse is exceptional, that the officers who misuse their power are a tiny minority, and that it is unfair to judge other cops (or the department as a whole) by the misbehavior of the few. This is a handy tool for diverting attention away from the institution, its structure, practices, and social role, pushing the blame, instead, onto some few of its agents. It is, in other words, a means of protecting the organization from scrutiny, and of avoiding change.”
Definitions of force...
“The study of police brutality faces any number of methodological barriers, not the least of which is the problem of defining it. There is no standard definition, nor is there one way of measuring force and excessive force. As a consequence, different studies produce very different results, and these results are difficult to compare.” And later down the page, “Things get even stickier when general patterns of violence are scrutinized, even where no particular encounter rises to the level of official misconduct. 'Use of excessive force [sic] means that police applied too much force in a given incident, while excessive use of force [sic] means that police apply force legally in too many incidents.'While the former is more likely to grab headlines, it is the latter that makes the largest contribution to the community's reservoir of grievances against the police. But, since the force in question is within the bounds of policy, the excessive use of force is more difficult to address from the perspective of discipline and administration. All of this controversy and confusion points to a very simple fact: Police brutality is a normative construction. It involves an evaluation, a judgement, and not simply a collection of facts.”
On community policing...
“The overall result of these efforts is to increase the police role in the community, meaning that the coercive apparatus of the state will be more involved with daily life.” He calls this a “smarter approach to repression,” not “demilitarization, liberalization, or democratization.” He writes, with regards to the more recent use of the term “community policing,” “The goal of community policing is to reduce resistance before force is required.” However, he also emphasizes that the dual strategy of community policing and militarization actually make the police “less tolerant of resistance and disorder, [and] even more forceful in their own demands.”
Just great. Very excited to hear that a new, expanded, and updated version is being printed in August. Don't forget to check out his latest "Fire the Cops."
Totally love this book. So great.
February 9, 2016
Since I have no clue how to start a review let me just begin by saying that I don’t just love this book but I also think it’s about an important and overlooked aspect of our society. One that hopefully is getting more attention these days. It’s one thing to adopt a hashtag mentality when approaching social issues, and another to actually look more in-depth at the origins and causes of a problem like the policing institution.
Throughout this book Kristian Williams does a thorough job (almost a quarter of this book is just works cited) of looking at the important aspects of modern policing in America, like its origin, the cause of its inherent racism, the factors that play a role when it grows into an autonomous institution, the dependence of the political machinery on a police that will comply with its rule, and the relationship of the police to its citizenry when its own survival is at stake. Our Enemies in Blue has basic ideas that are worth considering, discussing, and sharing if we are to properly evaluate what role it should play in our society. This book is just full of information that challenges the way we think about the police, like the fact that the police are involved in more cases of violence and deaths (about 8-9 times more often) than would occur otherwise, that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics policing does not fall in the top ten most dangerous professions (truck drivers, fishermen, and loggers experience death-related cases more often, for example), and that a police force that wants the right to unionize basically does so while at the same time functioning to break union strikes by laborers. That’s tax-payer dollars at work. Just let that sink in for a minute.
A great book that should be read by every responsible citizen.
Throughout this book Kristian Williams does a thorough job (almost a quarter of this book is just works cited) of looking at the important aspects of modern policing in America, like its origin, the cause of its inherent racism, the factors that play a role when it grows into an autonomous institution, the dependence of the political machinery on a police that will comply with its rule, and the relationship of the police to its citizenry when its own survival is at stake. Our Enemies in Blue has basic ideas that are worth considering, discussing, and sharing if we are to properly evaluate what role it should play in our society. This book is just full of information that challenges the way we think about the police, like the fact that the police are involved in more cases of violence and deaths (about 8-9 times more often) than would occur otherwise, that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics policing does not fall in the top ten most dangerous professions (truck drivers, fishermen, and loggers experience death-related cases more often, for example), and that a police force that wants the right to unionize basically does so while at the same time functioning to break union strikes by laborers. That’s tax-payer dollars at work. Just let that sink in for a minute.
A great book that should be read by every responsible citizen.
January 8, 2011
A really well written analysis of police brutality in the United States. While this book cannot document every case, it shows clearly that police brutality is a problem beyond severity. It (police brutality) is a fundamental flaw of the United States police system. This book should be on the literature lists of every high school in the United States, and beyond that it should be a requirement for criminal justice majors and police academy cadets.
February 7, 2016
a very soft 4/5. The book is very well-sourced and presents damning evidence against basically every incarnation of American police forces. The chapter about the Klan's involvement with the police is truly horrifying. However, it gets a little slow after the first half.
I'd recommend this to anyone who doubts that elitism, authoritarianism, retributivism, and white supremacy are integral components of the modern police institution.
I'd recommend this to anyone who doubts that elitism, authoritarianism, retributivism, and white supremacy are integral components of the modern police institution.
September 3, 2016
While I've always theoretically understood that police were created by many white power nationalists and slave patrols this book really helped me contextualize and understand it historically. Although the title of the book seems like it would be a theoretical tirade and rant against police- this is a well documented and very thorough research study that proves the case that the police are created to repress and oppress the people. As a labor organizer, the police as strike breakers paid by the population was a fascinating analysis. It was so interesting to hear that all union and working people actively resisting the creation of police in each state and city as it was happening. Everyone knew (at the time) the evils that would come from state sponsored patrollers (aka state funded Pinkertons). The historical ties between the police and the KKK were also painful to read. I couldn't recommend this book more to people that are interested in finding out the origins of the police or folks that are interested in 'police reform' to understand the limits to any type of liberal compromises (such as body cameras).
June 6, 2007
An excellent exploration of the history of police brutality in America, with careful attention paid to the politics of race. This is not a topic in which I am organically interested, but the book is well-written enough that I stuck with it, and I learned a great deal about both history and current events.
September 18, 2016
If you're completely new to the subject, it's full of extremely useful and exhaustively-researched data and historical examples. If you're already anti-police, even if you're not fully an abolitionist, I think you can reasonably just read the Afterword ("Making Police Obsolete") and refer to earlier in the book as needed.
August 20, 2008
Kristian Williams' book combines a penetrating critical history of the police with a lucid analysis of their role in the modern capitalist state.
February 7, 2014
One of the best books on the subject
August 20, 2013
militarization is a key component of community policing.
KRS-ONE- Sound of the Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VRZq3...
KRS-ONE- Sound of the Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VRZq3...
April 14, 2015
Fantastic!
November 2, 2019
Damn, what a research!
August 23, 2009
"if we are to understand the phenomenon of police brutality, we must get beyond particular cases. we can better understand the actions of individual police officers if we understand the institution of which they are a part. that institution, in turn, can best be examined if we have an understanding of its origins, it social function, and its relation to larger systems like capitalism and White supremacy" (9).
i really like kristian! his analysis is steady and consistent in that he does not stray away from this intent. upon choosing this text i was suffering from that particular terminal uniqueness called, "my personal experience." such is the course of my reading choices to makes sense of the particular dynamics that i imagine determine my own prejudices.
i am grateful that williams provides a bit of a breakthrough in his thoughtful engagement with historical documents, which examines different notions of citizenship, how it is defined, how it has shifted over time (from London to the Antebellum South) to modern constructions of city governments. he makes it clear out the blocks, "violence is an inherent part of policing."
oh! i knew this. but did he really have to say it like that? do i have to accept this right now? kinda, if you want to keep on reading. so now comes the cumbersome unearthing of texts that trace modern policing formations from London to New York, which do not account for the myriad of ways that determine police behavior (individuals always included - no innocents here) upon people of color; blacks in particular.
in essence, "Our Enemies in Blue," is a revisionist history making the obvious, but overlooked linkages of voluntary and compulsurary "right of passage" community patrolling in London to slave patrolling in the amerikkkan south to modern policing practices. the practices that have virtually gone unchanged, which says all too much about what has not changed, but williams doesn't have to even mention this.
it's icky, but interesting to note how the process of writing history once again strips the obvious violence of our institution to justify what seems to represent benign "service and protection."
with williams, the gig is up and the work has been done. in this reading, he quotes other revisionist work and takes them to task on not allowing the "institution" of policing to rest on the ideas that individuals are not complicit. in this sense, it's is a harder read and makes it difficult to chit chat with my LAPD cousins who are Black.
Peace,
a
i really like kristian! his analysis is steady and consistent in that he does not stray away from this intent. upon choosing this text i was suffering from that particular terminal uniqueness called, "my personal experience." such is the course of my reading choices to makes sense of the particular dynamics that i imagine determine my own prejudices.
i am grateful that williams provides a bit of a breakthrough in his thoughtful engagement with historical documents, which examines different notions of citizenship, how it is defined, how it has shifted over time (from London to the Antebellum South) to modern constructions of city governments. he makes it clear out the blocks, "violence is an inherent part of policing."
oh! i knew this. but did he really have to say it like that? do i have to accept this right now? kinda, if you want to keep on reading. so now comes the cumbersome unearthing of texts that trace modern policing formations from London to New York, which do not account for the myriad of ways that determine police behavior (individuals always included - no innocents here) upon people of color; blacks in particular.
in essence, "Our Enemies in Blue," is a revisionist history making the obvious, but overlooked linkages of voluntary and compulsurary "right of passage" community patrolling in London to slave patrolling in the amerikkkan south to modern policing practices. the practices that have virtually gone unchanged, which says all too much about what has not changed, but williams doesn't have to even mention this.
it's icky, but interesting to note how the process of writing history once again strips the obvious violence of our institution to justify what seems to represent benign "service and protection."
with williams, the gig is up and the work has been done. in this reading, he quotes other revisionist work and takes them to task on not allowing the "institution" of policing to rest on the ideas that individuals are not complicit. in this sense, it's is a harder read and makes it difficult to chit chat with my LAPD cousins who are Black.
Peace,
a
December 23, 2007
The history of policing section was a little dry, but did show connections between class formation and urbanization with the forms that state repression took and how it got to be more and more formalized, better funded, and more totalitarian from town guards to slave patrols to the klan to red squads to paramilitaries.
The evolution from keeping the peace to counterinsurgency was the most interesting part of the book for me. The notion that community policing was the soft/preventative face of counterinsurgency was clearly laid out. Williams named the ways that nonprofits, foundations, chambers of commerce, landlord associations, banks, and government itself was carefully infiltrated with police and their allies who will offer the "carrot" of state money and approval or the "stick" of denial of credit, loans, or grants to prevent any part of civil society or their landlords or funders from tolerating autonomous (let alone radical) organizations from gaining access to resources or "legitimacy" definitely resonates with my experiences in organizing.
And if we were to successfully organize autonomous movements that could function independent of the state and its agents and we actually were successful, then the police would be deployed more directly along with contractors like Blackwater, and if they couldn't subdue us then there's the national guard, then the army. That is the endgame of counterinsurgency I suppose, but for now capital just has to keep autonomous movements from getting resources...
The evolution from keeping the peace to counterinsurgency was the most interesting part of the book for me. The notion that community policing was the soft/preventative face of counterinsurgency was clearly laid out. Williams named the ways that nonprofits, foundations, chambers of commerce, landlord associations, banks, and government itself was carefully infiltrated with police and their allies who will offer the "carrot" of state money and approval or the "stick" of denial of credit, loans, or grants to prevent any part of civil society or their landlords or funders from tolerating autonomous (let alone radical) organizations from gaining access to resources or "legitimacy" definitely resonates with my experiences in organizing.
And if we were to successfully organize autonomous movements that could function independent of the state and its agents and we actually were successful, then the police would be deployed more directly along with contractors like Blackwater, and if they couldn't subdue us then there's the national guard, then the army. That is the endgame of counterinsurgency I suppose, but for now capital just has to keep autonomous movements from getting resources...
July 12, 2011
this book is amazingly researched. many US statistics and anecdotes of police brutality and murder and the recurrent predictable official responses and impunity to these. theoretically, it moves through the origins of modern policing (developed in England) to contemporary manifestations of policing today (paramilitary + community policing initiatives) with much inbetween (slave patrols + cointelpro). though it is very US specific, a lot of the analyses are internationally relevant, especially the critique of community policing. it ends by briefly considering alternatives that are community-controlled, such as street committees in south africa and restorative justice initiatives in northern ireland. concludes with a call for police-abolition.
while the central themes circulate around the race- and class-oppressive/repressive functions of modern policing in the US, and these are developed really well, i felt like gender was elided in a way that was unsatisfying to me. i suppose there are other books that deal with this, like Color of Violence etc., but it is a common criticism of anti-police (and anti-prison) organising that it doesn't take gendered violence seriously and that the victim of police brutality is taken-for-granted as male.
also, this book is dense, and i don't love Williams writing style... it's a bit too polemic in a way that came off a bit presumptuous and macho sometimes.
also, for the australians, i recommend jude mcculloch's Blue Army for a Victoria-specific analysis of paramilitary policing developments.
while the central themes circulate around the race- and class-oppressive/repressive functions of modern policing in the US, and these are developed really well, i felt like gender was elided in a way that was unsatisfying to me. i suppose there are other books that deal with this, like Color of Violence etc., but it is a common criticism of anti-police (and anti-prison) organising that it doesn't take gendered violence seriously and that the victim of police brutality is taken-for-granted as male.
also, this book is dense, and i don't love Williams writing style... it's a bit too polemic in a way that came off a bit presumptuous and macho sometimes.
also, for the australians, i recommend jude mcculloch's Blue Army for a Victoria-specific analysis of paramilitary policing developments.
January 15, 2013
An exhaustive examination of the trajectory of policing in America. Unlike most critics of our police system, Williams is not afraid to point out that what the mainstream sees as regrettable flaws are actually features built into the fabric of the police — whether that's the origin of the police as a racist institution designed to reinforce slavery, the inherently authoritarian nature of preventative policing, or how tactics for policing protest inevitably lead to brutality and violence.
Each chapter builds on the ones before it, and the penultimate chapter finally exposes the terrifying reality that modern "community policing" is actually a sophisticated military counterinsurgency. The "war on crime" is truly a war, with all attendant civilian casualties, shattered communities, and authoritarian violence.
This is a surprisingly dense book, not because of Williams's prose but because of the sheer amount of information he packs into every paragraph. It took me a few months to read it. But it's absolutely crucial and necessary for anyone who wants to put recent questions over police tactics into context. In the end, the police have always existed to preserve power where it stands and to undermine and destroy efforts to build true community (because genuine community, as Williams points out in the final chapter, is a threat to the power of the State).
No reform is possible.
Each chapter builds on the ones before it, and the penultimate chapter finally exposes the terrifying reality that modern "community policing" is actually a sophisticated military counterinsurgency. The "war on crime" is truly a war, with all attendant civilian casualties, shattered communities, and authoritarian violence.
This is a surprisingly dense book, not because of Williams's prose but because of the sheer amount of information he packs into every paragraph. It took me a few months to read it. But it's absolutely crucial and necessary for anyone who wants to put recent questions over police tactics into context. In the end, the police have always existed to preserve power where it stands and to undermine and destroy efforts to build true community (because genuine community, as Williams points out in the final chapter, is a threat to the power of the State).
No reform is possible.
May 20, 2016
I read the original of this book a year ago and recently finished the 10 year update and revision version.
See my original review here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
Three things I love about this book:
1) Williams updates the book through the early 2010s which is awesome as he was able to incorporate the start of the Black Lives Matter movement and other pertinent cases seen in the papers and online today
2) He takes some of his concepts and theories, such as his section on police violence, police unions, and the cops as Klan members, and expands and articulates the arguments. I found them more understandable and much stronger than the original.
3) Finally, at the end, he's expanded his afterword and included far more examples of civil situations without the use of police. Noticeably absent, however, were the Zapatistas. Maybe in 10 years?
Members of an anti-police brutality organization I work with in Rochester, NY, Enough Is Enough, have started reading sections of this book and are exploring different analyses related to abolition of the prison industrial complex, along with other writers and activists.
A superb read on the history and possible future direction of policing in American with some ideas for other possibilities. I really appreciated reading it again.
See my original review here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
Three things I love about this book:
1) Williams updates the book through the early 2010s which is awesome as he was able to incorporate the start of the Black Lives Matter movement and other pertinent cases seen in the papers and online today
2) He takes some of his concepts and theories, such as his section on police violence, police unions, and the cops as Klan members, and expands and articulates the arguments. I found them more understandable and much stronger than the original.
3) Finally, at the end, he's expanded his afterword and included far more examples of civil situations without the use of police. Noticeably absent, however, were the Zapatistas. Maybe in 10 years?
Members of an anti-police brutality organization I work with in Rochester, NY, Enough Is Enough, have started reading sections of this book and are exploring different analyses related to abolition of the prison industrial complex, along with other writers and activists.
A superb read on the history and possible future direction of policing in American with some ideas for other possibilities. I really appreciated reading it again.
October 7, 2015
I was pleasantly surprised by this well-thought out and thoroughly researched book. As my 1980’s studies in criminology were anything but radical, I thought (and kind of hoped) that I was ordering an anarchist polemic against the police. This book is not such a screed. It is a very informative book that uses historical examples and current events to make a very reasonable point: the police in the USA are a self-interested arm of the capitalist state …an arm this is growing in influence, autonomy, and power. The book is easy to read and had no unspoken assumptions or unfamiliar terminology that would confuse a reader not current with radical criminology (such as me). I very much enjoyed this book and have learned a great deal from reading it. I strongly recommend it.
July 19, 2013
An important read, the kind of book that draws the veil back on an institution we take for granted in society. It is a bit of a slog. At 238 pages it feels much longer, and at times the book becomes bogged down in details (the amount of footnotes and research is commendable). So, it's not an easy, pleasurable read, but it is enlightened, informed, caustic, self-reflective, and conscious of the dangers of alternatives to the police model as well.
October 24, 2015
A well researched exposition of the origin and history of policing.
August 30, 2016
An important, thoroughly researched and persuasive book about the institutionalized violence of the state.
August 21, 2021
The title is provocative, but the book itself is very scholarly and measured overall.
I read this book soon after Are Prisons Obsolete? which was a good pairing. Both books go further than calls to reform police and incarceration. They push you to consider whether we need these systems at all. They remind you that we didn’t always have them in the past, at some point we created them, and we don’t need to keep them just because we’ve had them for decades/centuries. They are not necessarily the best solutions to the problems they are attempting to solve. That’s an important thought process to have.
Another good point made in this book is that police and media often assume that a disruptive protest or a riot is an unwarranted reaction to something. That those are never legitimate actions. But if a group is oppressed and denied justice or aid via legitimate means, what exactly is that group supposed to do? Sit there and take it? Or are we saying they are exaggerating their woes and it’s not bad enough to warrant protests and/or riots? How do we know it’s not?
This book was dense. It was more history than I expected. More than I wanted tbh. 😂 I will not retain a lot of this. It was interesting but I was definitely not fully taking in all the details.
I was glad it included a little bit at the end about possible alternatives. I’d love to see more of that, read more about that.
I liked this part about the process of finding alternatives: “An insistence on perfection does not, in general, lead us to utopia but instead discourages us from making the attempt. Any movement that challenges power has to take risks, which means that sometimes we will make mistakes; the crucial thing is that we avoid repeating them.”
I read this book soon after Are Prisons Obsolete? which was a good pairing. Both books go further than calls to reform police and incarceration. They push you to consider whether we need these systems at all. They remind you that we didn’t always have them in the past, at some point we created them, and we don’t need to keep them just because we’ve had them for decades/centuries. They are not necessarily the best solutions to the problems they are attempting to solve. That’s an important thought process to have.
Another good point made in this book is that police and media often assume that a disruptive protest or a riot is an unwarranted reaction to something. That those are never legitimate actions. But if a group is oppressed and denied justice or aid via legitimate means, what exactly is that group supposed to do? Sit there and take it? Or are we saying they are exaggerating their woes and it’s not bad enough to warrant protests and/or riots? How do we know it’s not?
This book was dense. It was more history than I expected. More than I wanted tbh. 😂 I will not retain a lot of this. It was interesting but I was definitely not fully taking in all the details.
I was glad it included a little bit at the end about possible alternatives. I’d love to see more of that, read more about that.
I liked this part about the process of finding alternatives: “An insistence on perfection does not, in general, lead us to utopia but instead discourages us from making the attempt. Any movement that challenges power has to take risks, which means that sometimes we will make mistakes; the crucial thing is that we avoid repeating them.”
July 25, 2020
An excellent socio-political analysis of the role of police in American society. The writing is not dull, which makes it a digestible read.
It does a very good job at explaining how while the police are a manifestation of the state's power, they are also not entirely accountable to the state. It is a very sobering book in parts, and the stories of police entrapment, surveillance, and other abuses of power from the 1960s to the War on Terror are chilling.
While Vitale's book the End of Policing had me advocating all the ways the function of police could be better performed if replaced, this book has me pondering and thinking more deeply why the police are an institution that cannot be allowed to continue to exist.
It does a very good job at explaining how while the police are a manifestation of the state's power, they are also not entirely accountable to the state. It is a very sobering book in parts, and the stories of police entrapment, surveillance, and other abuses of power from the 1960s to the War on Terror are chilling.
While Vitale's book the End of Policing had me advocating all the ways the function of police could be better performed if replaced, this book has me pondering and thinking more deeply why the police are an institution that cannot be allowed to continue to exist.
May 24, 2018
The title's provocative nature may put off some potential readers of this book, but I feel that Williams's prose style is far less confrontational than the title itself is. This book in many ways resembles the writings of Foucault, with Williams' providing a high level of scrutiny into the history of policing in the United States that also interrogates the theoretical motivations for policing. (Unlike Foucault, Williams is a bit more readily accessible in his prose.) I feel that this is a book that needs more prominent circulation, from police (who can benefit from better understanding where they fit into a larger history of political control) and conservatives (to see how modern modes of policing carry over, in part, from southern slave patrols so that they may better understand many African American's rational distrust of the police) to union members (to understand how policing had functioned in opposition to the labor movement) and to the socially liberal (to better see the complex machinations that control and shape America). It is definitely worth checking out.
May 23, 2018
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.
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