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Down, Out, and Under Arrest: Policing and Everyday Life in Skid Row
In his first year working in Los Angeles’s Skid Row, Forrest Stuart was stopped on the street by police fourteen times. Usually for doing little more than standing there.
Juliette, a woman he met during that time, has been stopped by police well over one hundred times, arrested upward of sixty times, and has given up more than a year of her life serving week-long jail sentences. Her most common crime? Simply sitting on the sidewalk—an arrestable offense in LA.
Why? What purpose did those arrests serve, for society or for Juliette? How did we reach a point where we’ve cut support for our poorest citizens, yet are spending ever more on policing and prisons? That’s the complicated, maddening story that Stuart tells in Down, Out and Under Arrest , a close-up look at the hows and whys of policing poverty in the contemporary United States. What emerges from Stuart’s years of fieldwork—not only with Skid Row residents, but with the police charged with managing them—is a tragedy built on mistakes and misplaced priorities more than on heroes and villains. He reveals a situation where a lot of people on both sides of this issue are genuinely trying to do the right thing, yet often come up short. Sometimes, in ways that do serious harm.
At a time when distrust between police and the residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods has never been higher, Stuart’s book helps us see where we’ve gone wrong, and what steps we could take to begin to change the lives of our poorest citizens—and ultimately our society itself—for the better.
Juliette, a woman he met during that time, has been stopped by police well over one hundred times, arrested upward of sixty times, and has given up more than a year of her life serving week-long jail sentences. Her most common crime? Simply sitting on the sidewalk—an arrestable offense in LA.
Why? What purpose did those arrests serve, for society or for Juliette? How did we reach a point where we’ve cut support for our poorest citizens, yet are spending ever more on policing and prisons? That’s the complicated, maddening story that Stuart tells in Down, Out and Under Arrest , a close-up look at the hows and whys of policing poverty in the contemporary United States. What emerges from Stuart’s years of fieldwork—not only with Skid Row residents, but with the police charged with managing them—is a tragedy built on mistakes and misplaced priorities more than on heroes and villains. He reveals a situation where a lot of people on both sides of this issue are genuinely trying to do the right thing, yet often come up short. Sometimes, in ways that do serious harm.
At a time when distrust between police and the residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods has never been higher, Stuart’s book helps us see where we’ve gone wrong, and what steps we could take to begin to change the lives of our poorest citizens—and ultimately our society itself—for the better.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published August 5, 2016
35 people are currently reading
794 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
October 13, 2025
just for my own work this was actually incredibly informative and helpful in answering some questions I’ve been too embarrassed to ask at work (mainly acronyms and certain policies lol). I thought he did good job weaving in candid conversations and interactions with more legal/historical context. Definitely had a bias but at least the bias was on the right side :). One slight mention for harm reduction at the end
April 3, 2023
More than just a social history of Skid Row (which is what I was seeking, and what this book supplies in the opening chapters), this book is an ethnographic study that examines the larger issues of how poverty rows are created – and unintentionally maintained – by misguided attempts to police such areas in a way that only criminalizes poverty (the author was stopped by police several times merely for standing on the street). As a result, the residents of Skid Row essentially have to think like criminals to avoid the police, even when they have done nothing more than stand on the street corner, causing a resistance to police presence that ironically makes it more difficult to provide the resources residents so desperately need. Stuart also examines the perspective from the side of law enforcement who have the unenviable position of being the punitive arm of a supposedly “therapeutic” social reform tactic. A multifaceted look at an issue that has no easy solutions.
July 8, 2017
"If we can be brave enough to put faith in our lowliest neighbors, we can build this future together. "
This book had me thinking about my time working in a homeless shelter and whether the work we did was truly benefiting those in the shelter. Combining stories of residents of Skid Row, police, and local community organizations, this book provides great insight into how we treat the poor and why. Although it took some time to get into, this book was very good and an easy read.
This book had me thinking about my time working in a homeless shelter and whether the work we did was truly benefiting those in the shelter. Combining stories of residents of Skid Row, police, and local community organizations, this book provides great insight into how we treat the poor and why. Although it took some time to get into, this book was very good and an easy read.
October 10, 2020
I was an officer for 3 years before transitioning to a PhD program in Criminal Justice. My ProSeminar professor (equivalent of intro to CJUS) assigned us this book and it was amazing. Over the summer I read some YA books to help me understand the BLM movement and they really stuck with me. THIS BOOK, hit me just as hard as those YA books did. I learned way more than I expected to from this book and I highly recommend this as a MANDATORY reading for anyone in the Criminal Justice field and strongly recommend to the general public. The work from this book is STILL applicable to this day, THAT is how powerful this is. I know this review is broad, but I truly believe you need to go in blind to appreciate what Stuart has to say. Few books have challenged me to grow even more than I thought I was ready for until I had the pleasure to read them. 10/5. Read it now, you don’t regret it.
February 20, 2025
Definitely my favorite book of the course so far (probably will be favorite period), this is an ethnographic study into the everyday life of those on Skid Row. This really cracked open the differing agencies, organizations and state agents who had a hand in the formation of modern day Skid Row and led to the therapeutic policing strategy and hyperpolicing in the area. It really brought in the idea we have in terms of who is being prioritized, who is being protected when policing occurs and the tensions that arise from hyperpolicing. I was fascinated by the informal social controls that occurred in this book and the ways individualism and collectivism changed over time or weren't always allowed to operate as they might outside of Skid Row, they are constantly being surveilled and stigmatized, and this really seeps through every interaction. I'd definitely recommend reading this.
May 27, 2021
Stuart offers an insightful and balanced perspective on the issue of urban poverty and homelessness, how it is being handled, and where we have gone wrong. This is a well researched ethnographic study of the 50-block neighborhood of Skid Row in Los Angeles, CA, and the author himself spent time there for his field research, befriended its citizens, and witnessed their trials and run-ins with police engaged in “therapeutic policing,” which is not nearly as nice as it sounds.
At the crux of the problem of urban poverty is the neoliberal greed of the 1980s and 90s that restructured and privatized welfare services in the form of mega-shelters that seek to gain financially from the most vulnerable among us and that feed them to the prison industry. These are my thoughts, culled from Stuart’s study, not his actual words (he takes a much more professional and even handed tone that vilifies none of the major players in this crisis). What I found fascinating about this book is Stuart’s portrayal of the Skid Row community’s way of sticking together and taking care of each other and their practice of “cop wisdom” to avoid being arrested. However, there seemed a bit of naïveté in Forrest Stuart’s belief that all of the parties involved here are actually trying to solve this problem rather than profiting from it. Or maybe he just presented the material in a way that allows readers to draw their own conclusion.
Moreover, while reading about the survival strategies of the denizens of Skid Row, I was struck by how much the mega-shelters and the police attempt to use the oldest trick in the book—divide and conquer—to control the urban poor. What the author neglects to say directly but that I picked up on, is that the police are also pawns in this game, set against the urban poor in order to support a system where our giant, corporate government profits off of them. There is big money in everything today for those at the top pulling the strings, even in urban poverty.
All of that said, Stuart’s book is not without hope. Grass roots community efforts are successfully addressing injustice on Skid Row (Catholic Workers, Hippie Kitchen, Community Watch, and LACAN, with the help of the ACLU). I am grateful for this book. After I finished reading it, I felt more knowledgeable about why things are the way they are today, but it was also a reminder that there are people whose problems are far worse than mine. But make no mistake, Stuart does not present Skid Row residents here as helpless victims. Quite the contrary, they are smart, resourceful, resilient, and sometimes even proud.
At the crux of the problem of urban poverty is the neoliberal greed of the 1980s and 90s that restructured and privatized welfare services in the form of mega-shelters that seek to gain financially from the most vulnerable among us and that feed them to the prison industry. These are my thoughts, culled from Stuart’s study, not his actual words (he takes a much more professional and even handed tone that vilifies none of the major players in this crisis). What I found fascinating about this book is Stuart’s portrayal of the Skid Row community’s way of sticking together and taking care of each other and their practice of “cop wisdom” to avoid being arrested. However, there seemed a bit of naïveté in Forrest Stuart’s belief that all of the parties involved here are actually trying to solve this problem rather than profiting from it. Or maybe he just presented the material in a way that allows readers to draw their own conclusion.
Moreover, while reading about the survival strategies of the denizens of Skid Row, I was struck by how much the mega-shelters and the police attempt to use the oldest trick in the book—divide and conquer—to control the urban poor. What the author neglects to say directly but that I picked up on, is that the police are also pawns in this game, set against the urban poor in order to support a system where our giant, corporate government profits off of them. There is big money in everything today for those at the top pulling the strings, even in urban poverty.
All of that said, Stuart’s book is not without hope. Grass roots community efforts are successfully addressing injustice on Skid Row (Catholic Workers, Hippie Kitchen, Community Watch, and LACAN, with the help of the ACLU). I am grateful for this book. After I finished reading it, I felt more knowledgeable about why things are the way they are today, but it was also a reminder that there are people whose problems are far worse than mine. But make no mistake, Stuart does not present Skid Row residents here as helpless victims. Quite the contrary, they are smart, resourceful, resilient, and sometimes even proud.
March 13, 2020
I had no idea when I started reading that there would be correlations between policing the poor and teaching middle schoolers. Some students advocate for themselves and handle their business while others resist help, even when it’s for their own good. Often, steps to improvement are punitive—tutoring is mandatory and if students don’t attend, they’re given an office referral that turns into a detention. According to Forrest Stuart, the same goes (or it did) for those living in extreme poverty in Los Angeles. As a graduate student, he spent several years studying various groups who live there and getting to know the police who work there. It is a sad truth that bad things happen unexpectedly and people are left with few options for housing. It is also true that many fall victim to poor choices that lead to alcoholism, addiction, and/or incarceration. But in this country, none of those conditions strips away one’s inalienable rights, and yet people often forget that. They want the ugliness of poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and addiction to be out of sight; they want all to conform to societal norms because that’s what’s best for all. One way this has been accomplished is to make people choose between jail and a treatment facility. But that’s not what jail is for. The job of the police is not to harass or incarcerate the marginalized but to serve and protect all regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or address. It is no wonder that when the police cross the line by habit or by mandate that their efforts are often thwarted by those they’re policing. Many who prefer not to be “jacked up” by the police become “cop wise“ in that they look at situations like police do so they can alter others’ perceptions of their appearance or behavior in order to avoid interactions with the police. Kids display similar behaviors around adults when trying to not get into trouble.
The information in the book is eye opening. It’s tragic and sad in some cases but hopeful in others, especially when people use their powers for good rather than evil. I like the fact that the author did not automatically paint all poor communities with the same brush. There are similarities of course, especially in inner city situations; however, there are decided differences as well. My one criticism is the author’s overuse of the word ubiquitous.4
The information in the book is eye opening. It’s tragic and sad in some cases but hopeful in others, especially when people use their powers for good rather than evil. I like the fact that the author did not automatically paint all poor communities with the same brush. There are similarities of course, especially in inner city situations; however, there are decided differences as well. My one criticism is the author’s overuse of the word ubiquitous.4
April 30, 2022
A lot of really informative ethnographic insights about “therapeutic policing,” residential “cop wisdom,” and collective anti-policing resistance in Los Angeles’ Skid Row. I would have given the book five stars on the above basis alone, but the author unfortunately maintains a police reformist line and fails to interrogate how “housing first” policies still reproduce neoliberal paternalism (See Brian Hennigan, “House broken: homelessness, housing first, and neoliberal poverty governance”).
Still, “Down, Out, and Under Arrest,” definitely made me realize how adaptive officers can be against residents’ attempts to counteract police violence. While I already knew police play copyrighted music on loudspeakers in hopes that social media platforms will remove online footage of their activities, Stuart showed me how truly nefarious and impromptu police attempts to avoid residential accountability can be.
In one strikingly cruel example, police officers attempted to turn Skid Row against Community Watch, a organization made up of poor Skid Row residents that record officer-community interactions, by lying to a detainee that "your video is going to on the LAPD website for your friends and family to see." The man immediately demanded the team to end their recording. While Community Watch primarily stopped the footage out of respect of the detainees discomfort, they knew that its public distribution would be counterproductive: rather than reveal the arbitrary and violative patterns of Skid Row policing, the footage now appeared voyeuristic and distant from Skid Row concerns.
That is probably the most valuable lesson I learned from this reading: officers are a dynamic oppressive force not to be underestimated. Successful resistance must counteract and surpass formal and informal police adaptations.
Still, “Down, Out, and Under Arrest,” definitely made me realize how adaptive officers can be against residents’ attempts to counteract police violence. While I already knew police play copyrighted music on loudspeakers in hopes that social media platforms will remove online footage of their activities, Stuart showed me how truly nefarious and impromptu police attempts to avoid residential accountability can be.
In one strikingly cruel example, police officers attempted to turn Skid Row against Community Watch, a organization made up of poor Skid Row residents that record officer-community interactions, by lying to a detainee that "your video is going to on the LAPD website for your friends and family to see." The man immediately demanded the team to end their recording. While Community Watch primarily stopped the footage out of respect of the detainees discomfort, they knew that its public distribution would be counterproductive: rather than reveal the arbitrary and violative patterns of Skid Row policing, the footage now appeared voyeuristic and distant from Skid Row concerns.
That is probably the most valuable lesson I learned from this reading: officers are a dynamic oppressive force not to be underestimated. Successful resistance must counteract and surpass formal and informal police adaptations.
May 7, 2021
A very accessible, well researched and well written ethnography of LA's Skid Row. Stuart seamlessly integrates theory with his observations and experiences in Skid Row while making a number of valuable theoretical and empirical contributions of his own. The work is nuanced and complex. In spite of my following critique, I think it is well worth the read, and recommend the book.
My biggest problems with the work can likely be chalked up to the limitations inherent in the use of ethnography: Stuart's Skid Row is not the Skid Row I knew in the time I spent there, which overlapped some with his time there. As a result of his need to find ways to blend in to understand and participate in life in Skid Row, Stuart limited his contacts: he does not mention interacting with women or AFAB people in his time there, nor any mentions of queer and/or trans people. It is unclear from this work, but it seems possible to me that Stuart also chose not to stay overnight in Skid Row often, if ever -- and some of the dynamics can be very different after dark. Most especially, Stuart does not interact with residents of Skid Row whose primary survival strategy is based in community, in mutual aid and sharing of resources. The result is that the work presented seems to suggest a full picture of the various players in that sociopolitical space, but it leaves many out. Stuart's Skid Row looks to be a place where everyone only looks out for themselves - and that is a valid strategy employed by many, but his lack of interaction with tighter-knit community-oriented residents leaves a gap and, to some extent, leaves his theoretical contributions incomplete.
My biggest problems with the work can likely be chalked up to the limitations inherent in the use of ethnography: Stuart's Skid Row is not the Skid Row I knew in the time I spent there, which overlapped some with his time there. As a result of his need to find ways to blend in to understand and participate in life in Skid Row, Stuart limited his contacts: he does not mention interacting with women or AFAB people in his time there, nor any mentions of queer and/or trans people. It is unclear from this work, but it seems possible to me that Stuart also chose not to stay overnight in Skid Row often, if ever -- and some of the dynamics can be very different after dark. Most especially, Stuart does not interact with residents of Skid Row whose primary survival strategy is based in community, in mutual aid and sharing of resources. The result is that the work presented seems to suggest a full picture of the various players in that sociopolitical space, but it leaves many out. Stuart's Skid Row looks to be a place where everyone only looks out for themselves - and that is a valid strategy employed by many, but his lack of interaction with tighter-knit community-oriented residents leaves a gap and, to some extent, leaves his theoretical contributions incomplete.
November 16, 2023
Read for urban sociology class [UPPP 40]. A different side and history to policing than we see often in media, not brutal, but "therapeutic", harmful nonetheless. Skid row police's pure(?)-intentioned rehabilitative strategies that practically translate to criminalization of sitting on the sidewalk and such. I found the historical development section particularly surprising; therapeutic policing rose due to pressure from private welfare orgs (the misguided do-gooder, damn!) whose power/relevancy is directly tied to welfare policy. Part 2 discusses "cop-wisdom", the "cognitive schema residents develop to avoid unwanted police contact". Which sounds and at times is explained in a sort of made up scholar pompousness way, but is thoroughly proved a legitimate thing that deeply affects people and cyclical poverty in Skid Row.
Themes that this book reinforced:
- everything is complicated
- it sucks so so much when people are trying to help and do the opposite
- social science is an actual field and not just made up apparently
Themes that this book reinforced:
- everything is complicated
- it sucks so so much when people are trying to help and do the opposite
- social science is an actual field and not just made up apparently
July 31, 2021
Sosiologi Forrest Stuart vietti viisi vuotta Los Angelesin köyhimmässä osassa, Skid Rowssa. Hän kuvaa ja analysoi alueen asukkaiden elämää tarkkanäköisesti ja elävästi. Erityisen kiinnostavaa on vuorovaikutus poliisien kanssa, koska sosiaaliturvan puutteiden vuoksi lähes ainoa vuorovaikutus yhteiskunnan kanssa tapahtuu poliisien kautta. Stuart kuvaa nollatoleranssin ja nk. terapeuttisen poliisitoiminnan haittoja ja kaupunginosan asukkaiden sopeutumista poliisien suureen määrään ja aktiiviseen toimintaan. Kokonaisuutena erittäin hyvä kirja, joka avartaa näkökulmia Yhdysvaltojen erilaisista todellisuuksista.
August 11, 2019
Pretty interesting read on how the more interested police are in helping ("helping") the destitute the worse some of the outcomes become, and just in general on how instead of social workers we now have police doing everything, with predictably corrosive effects on community (and, as a result down the line, crime).
December 30, 2018
Great read for anyone working in the field of homelessness services.
January 9, 2021
An important resource for anyone who wants to understand policing and/or poverty.
December 12, 2021
the grad school book logging continues
June 12, 2023
alright ethnography, too roseate with his proposed solutions
November 5, 2024
3.75 stars
June 5, 2025
3.5 ⭐️
June 21, 2025
More academic than I was looking for but still an informative read
October 13, 2025
Great book that gives insight into skid row. Excellent in giving multiple perspectives and in depth analysis
February 10, 2017
The best introduction to the internal politics, history and policing of LA's Skid Row I've yet found (if you have suggestions for others, let me know!). Stuart undertakes an ethnography of Skid Row from the point of view of the people who live there and the police who run it, arguing that the establishment of the city's mega-shelters (all located in the 50 block radius), liberal politics and LAPD reforms have given rise to a "therapeutic" model of policing that is actually more punitive than previous "zero tolerance" models. Why? Because, as part of their duties, police in the area are drafted into becoming last-resort social workers and encouraged to shepherd Skid Row denizens toward the shelter system using every method at their disposal. The approach has given rise, Stuart argues, to a whole range of responses from the community as they seek to avoid unwanted attention, which he chronicles brilliantly.
November 14, 2016
Very interesting story of policing and the police on Skid Row, in Downtown Los Angeles. Stuart writes about the period of time during which the LAPD were implementing the Safe Cities Initiative, and residents of Skid Row found themselves heavily policed by "therapeutic policing." This, Stuart argues (convincingly), is the point at which punitiveness and the desire for rehabilitation come together, but with fairly disastrous consequences.
Stuart makes some of his research subjects into characters, who help drive the book forward. These characters, Stuart's thoughtful analysis of circumstances, and his willingness to engage both with police and community members makes this an important book for anyone interested in how our country deals with poverty.
Stuart makes some of his research subjects into characters, who help drive the book forward. These characters, Stuart's thoughtful analysis of circumstances, and his willingness to engage both with police and community members makes this an important book for anyone interested in how our country deals with poverty.
October 19, 2016
Won a copy on Goodreads. This is a sociological study of the culture of skid row. It examines the life of the residents lives and struggles to survive. The police and their tactics are under attack in this study by the author, Forrest Stuart, though he claims that was not his original intention. Good writing, but I felt it was sort of a smear job on a Los Angeles government that wants to elevate the down trodden to a better place in society. Bleeding liberals will agree with the author, I do not.
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