Police: A Field Guide

by David Correia, Tyler Wall

This book armed activists on the streets-as well as the many who have become concerned about police abuse-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.

Now in an expanded and updated edition, including explanations of newsmaking new terms, like "dead names", "kettling", and "qualified immunity", as well as a new foreword by leading criminal justice advocate Craig Gilmore

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Sociology, History, Police, Social Justice, Ebooks

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2018

About the author

David Correia is the author of six books, including Properties of Violence: Law and Land Grant Studies in Northern New Mexico; An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents over Three Centuries; and Set the Earth on Fire: The Great Anthracite Strike of 1902 and the Birth of the Police. He is a professor in the department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of New Mexico.

Reviews

[sologdin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very effective. Leftwing analysis of law enforcement, which is re-evaluated as 'violence workers.' After that shift, the analysis falls into place, a fairly standard marxist's stripping away of appearances, most importantly by disrupting the readiness-to-hand of the pedestrian bourgeois lexicon through use of a new, alien vocabulary.

[Dan Slimmon · Rating 3 out of 5]

this ain't your daddy's glossary of police terms

i don't know. there's something to be said for looking at police through a lens other than the one police themselves construct. that i can get behind. and this book has some insights.

but a lot of it feels very college freshman "okay, you ready for this shit man? (huge bong rip) police don't _patrol_ space, police… CREATE space." like okay… what do i do with that?

[Camilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book worth consulting again and again for convincing arguments to cut through police doublespeak.

[Zach Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Required reading for anyone on the left and for anyone who wants to cut through the bullshit of policing and 'copspeak.'

[Shawn Fahrer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a REVELATION and should be read by everyone with at least half a brain left in their heads. Let me preface my review by stating the following:
1) I have a BA degree in Culture and Deviance Studies (formerly known as "Deviant Behavior and Social Control") from John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY -- 2013). As aresult, I know a bit about what police are SUPPOSED TO DO (as opposed to what actually goes on "in the field").
2) I was mugged in July 2014 (on a Friday afternoon on a sunny day -- not your "normal" mugging conditions). Once I processed mentally what had happened (from attack to capture of the alleged perpetrator to my eventual finishing my day's activities; yes, fortunately enough I did not need to go to the hospital since my main injury was a bruised right thumb), I soon realized several things:
a) From The way I was 'conveniently' able to get assistance (from someone who may have actually been doubling as the perp's "lookout" from across the street) when no one else happened to be around;
b) to the quick and multiple response of the police (including a unit from the HOUSING POLICE who were at least a mile away from the housing units' -- aka "Projects"-- that they are supposed to be patrolling);
c) to the only FEMALE officer on scene gaining credit for the arrest (AKA "affirmative Action")
d) to the semi-chaos at the arrest scene
e) to the fact that the alleged perp was a multi-time offender (petty crimes, mostly), presumably known to police in the area...
f) to the additional fact that my wallet and watch (stolen at the time) was NOT kept for "evidence", dusted for finger prints, etc. but returned to me (minus the approximately $ 20 that was in the wallet -- all other material was still intact, though.

After all this, you may not wonder why I began to suspect that I WAS SET UP AS A UNWITTING VICTIM IN A POLICE "LIVE FIRE EXERCISE" (and that I may have been deliberately targeted not just by the perp, but BY THE POLICE, because I am a "canner" on the side or because during my undergrad days, I often took positions that were not their "standard positions"-- note here, I consider myself to be as close to the "alt-Right" -- AKA REACTIONARY -- as you can be without being an offical member of any of their organizations).

To continue, canners like me will go through refuse cans, etc. searching out deposit bottles that people lazily throw away so they can earn a few extra dollars... Police don't like us much (although we are harmless to the population at large), so we can become targets of "broken windows" style law enforcement. As a result, apparently, we can also become "victims of crime" CAUSED BY POLICE to generate arrests to make themselves look better than they really are (or even to promote a social agenda)! After all, how else do you 'train' police for 'the real thing' by setting up 'THE REAL THING'?

Therefore, I am NOT one of these "snowflake" Socialist Left wing types you see running roughshod on college campuses these days (as both students AND professors). In fact, I am virtually their political OPPOSITE (as much so as I would argue that [internationalist] Socialists are the political opposite of [Nationalist] 'socialists'). But I share at least some of their concerns as to what can be described as "police overkill" (and not just in a figurative sense, either!)

It is obvious that Correia (and his partner, Tyler Wall) would subscribe to a stronger version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which states that the language you use (and I don't necessarily mean English vs French vs Tagalog, but more the way in which WORDS ARE USED TO CONVEY MEANING) virtually DETERMINES your range of possible thoughts and may even literally change your brain....
As a result, a book like this that DECONSTRUCTS "cop speak", almost in the style of George Orwell's 1984 (of which I actually had a much different response to the ending than most people when I read it) is a most necessary thing for this country (which has been "dumbed down" in the words of the late John Taylor Gatto by the american educational system, rendering many of its people docile and incapable of rational thought).

While I firmly believe that police, being the local enforcement arm of the local "Deep State", virtually have to engage in "brutality" in order to justify their continuing existence, the least they can do is ADMIT IT TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (and most of all, TO THEMSELVES). Admit that it is an act of BRUTALITY to arrest one Roger Stone (who I believe was set up by the so-called "Department of Justice", which, of course, is really a DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE, to have been "convicted" of acts that probably shouldn't even be crimes in the first place) at 5 AM in the morning -- in his pajamas -- just so CNN could get an "exclusive" story (because, unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past few years, you know that CNN is "failing" almost as much as the "failing New York Times"). It as much an act of BRUTALITY as what happened to Randy Weaver's wife and son at the hands of FBI agents at Ruby Ridge, never mind the COINTELPRO stuff of the 1960s and 1970s.

Therefore, police (as well as their Federal counterparts in the FBI, CIA, and NSA, whose litany of malfeasances were exposed by THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN PATRIOT by the name of Edward Snowden, who reluctantly had to accept EXILE IN RUSSIA over a "show trial" in the US which would have resulted in his quick EXECUTION for DARING TO TELL THE TRUTH -- and you wonder why Trumpians like myself don't mind alleged "Russian collusion" since the enemy [Russia] of my enemy [the Deep State] is my friend), should simply ADMIT that such police behavior is NECESSARY to maintain a semblance of ORDER in a multicultural, multiethnic country such as ours. (the proper solution would be some modified form of "ethnic cleansing", but you can't get away with that nowadays because we have to be "tolerant" of evil masquerading as "other cultures" -- therefore, any society that values self-preservation virtually HAS to resort to police brutality tactics). This book EXPOSES those tactics -- I only wish one who was more PRO-POLICE had written it so it could be explained better WHY SUCH TACTICS ARE NECESSARY.... (Perhaps I should be that writer, but until then, this is what we have. SO READ IT!)

I have been using it as reference material for a paper on language and police brutality -- and plan to buy a copy for permanent reference once I have to return it to the college library.... IT'S THAT GOOD!

I recommend reading this book along with Chris Hayes's "A Colony In a Nation" (which, despite the author's constant presence on MSNBC as a nightly anchor ["All In with Chris Hayes"] is not as "radical" [actually a bit more lukewarm] than Correia and Wall's book is). Yet while Hayes admits that "the tactics used in the Colony" [AKA lower class "minority" neighborhoods] can seep in to the Nation (what can best be described as "White America"), he fails to realize that THOSE TACTICS ALREADY HAVE -- with disastrous consequences for those ensnared by those tactics. All he has to do is ASK ROGER STONE. ASK PAUL MANAFORT. Ask any surviving member of the Branch Davidian massacre in Waco TX. They will confirm what we all should already know--what police (or other "law enforcement agencies") tell you to try to get you to voluntarily comply with their wishes isn't always the truth.... This is why I fully recommend "Police: A Field Guide" as a necessary ANTIDOTE to the BS that comes at you from the mainstream media (AKA the "lying press") regarding what police do, and, more importantly, WHY THEY DO IT -- before YOU COULD BE NEXT....

[Dachokie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Alarmist and Absurd …

This book was reviewed as part of Amazon's Vine program which included a free copy of the book.

I’m all for an alternative perspective on issues, but the premise behind POLICE: A FIELD GUIDE is nothing more than an alarmist attempt to convince mindless people into believing law enforcement is bad and unnecessary with assumptions and cherry-picked information that provide only a one-sided perspective.

The method used by the authors is rather simple: scare people into thinking law enforcement is evil and unnecessary. From the onset, the authors make their beliefs clear … they want the US to be free of walls and cages and actually state that the US is currently a “police state”. Of course, the authors have NO experience in law enforcement … they prefer to do all their research from the safe confines of a college campus and selectively draw information that only suits their cause. What readers get is a book so narrow in scope and purpose that it is actually dangerous. Typical of activist instigators, the authors provide the alarmist information to spur those naïve enough to believe it into being the sacrificial lambs for the “cause”. I guess the ultimate question is how many of the authors’ target audience will become incensed enough to “take action”.

The book starts off on the wrong foot when it declares the US as being a “police state”. While there is nothing in the authors’ biographies indicating they’ve ever even experienced life in a real police state (say North Korea or Venezuela), it would be easy to assume a book like POLICE: A FIELD GUIDE would never have made it to publishing in a real “police state”. The book itself is somewhat entertaining in its absurdity and rife with assumptions, embellishments and misinformation. The media’s favorite topics of instigation are all present and accounted for: guns, profiling and brutality. For example, the authors gleefully claim “all police love to display their guns” (really?) and broadly characterize K-9s as attack dogs (even though many/most police departments are finding passive alert K-9s as being more productive and community friendly). The book categorizes almost every piece of police equipment as tools of the violent oppressive police state … laughably, even the flashlight is not spared in the authors’ anti-law enforcement tirade. Basically, nothing worn on a police uniform is safe from being targeted, as are tactics. If the tactics are beneficial … say, police response to an active shooter, the authors prefer to ignore. Of course, race is the constant theme running through the book, from beginning to end. While I am not going to make light of police incidents where race is an issue (obviously, they do occur), the authors only wish to highlight those incidents that are deemed racial and by doing so, they castigate all law enforcement as racist. If people really want an unbiased/unfiltered analysis of police shootings in this country, the Washington Post has been providing a database of all police-related shootings each year since 2015 … the facts simply don’t support this book’s assertions.

This book would have been okay had the authors even attempted to provide a balanced look at the subject matter or even factored-in a little common sense to make a point. Instead, they chose to simply jump on the stereotypical bandwagon that creates so much divisiveness in this country these days. Throughout my reading of this book, I wondered whether or not the authors hoped to instigate violence towards law enforcement as a means of “leveling things out”. The issue of profiling, for example, is a little one-sided … no mention of the standard profiling of serial killers (typically, white males). What makes the book so bad is that the “research” seemed to be steeped in searching the internet … the authors offer no practical first-hand experience to the subject matter. There is no evidence of either author participating in ride-a-long programs (offered by many law enforcement agencies), participation in a citizen’s police academy (also offered by many departments) or even watching an episode of “Live PD”. There is no mention of the good police do, just hype on headline-breaking worst incidents. There is also no consideration of the fact that we live in a country of over 330 million citizens and five, ten or even fifty incidents of “really bad cop behavior” is somewhat low considering the number of men and women in law enforcement are somewhere over a million and include individuals representing all aspects of this country in terms of race, religion, sexual preference, etc..

While I’m not in law enforcement, I have taken advantage of being able to understand what the job entails through several ride-a-longs and participating in a citizen’s police academy (which was more enlightening than any book I could ever read). I also live in a town that has experienced a mass shooting, two incidents involving police being killed, a beheading and a 13 year old girl who was murdered by college students … in all cases, our community benefited greatly from the dedicated service of law enforcement. In fact, I’ll argue, I have more practical knowledge and experience than both authors do regarding police … it certainly helps to understand the subject matter when you at least make an effort to walk in the shoes of others. Try convincing school systems to drop the presence of resource officers in their buildings and see how that goes.

Honestly, I found THE POLICE: A FIELD GUIDE utterly juvenile and irresponsible in its approach to a serious subject matter. I would suggest the authors step out of their cozy world of academia and experience things rather than burying themselves in selective research. Maybe one of the authors (David Correia) could take a quick jaunt off the U of NM campus and talk to inmates and corrections officers that experienced the horrors of the New Mexico prison riot in 1980 … maybe he’d learn that, in some instances, those cages are warranted.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was offered as a free e-book by leftist publisher Verso around the time police began confrontations with those protesting George Floyd's murder by the police. Think of it like an encyclopedia of police terminology with a 1- to 5-page entry for each term. It's a reference book designed to break down the official language used by the police:

“The purpose of Police: A Field Guide has been to challenge the world of copspeak. Our contention is that a rigorous critique of police and police violence must take the language of police seriously; must take into account the ways the vocabulary of police reform often sets the very terms of debate, blunts any criticism, and makes any alternative to business as usual all but impossible. This book challenges the police definition of reality by refusing its official language and rejecting the seemingly commonsense vocabulary of police.”

On the one hand, it's refreshing in its unapologetic and unblinking perspective, which essentially boils down to the police being the enactment of state-sanctioned violence to protect property and the capitalist status quo. There's never any question while reading that the authors are on the fence---they want to outright abolish the police (not to reform or defund) because the authorities and powers wielded can lead to nothing but abuse of power, harassment, and legally irreproachable harm/killings.

But this also creates a kind of hermetic seal around the arguments in this book as if they are not open to discussion. A fait accompli. The part I never truly got my head around: All social civility and organization, in my opinion, is held in place, either overtly or invisibly, by the threat of violence. Yes, people have a self interest, mostly, in getting along and finding ways to cooperate, but when they decide that theft, force, assault, or fraud are better approaches, it is the threat of being incarcerated or injured/killed by the police that either prevents this or stops its continuance in many cases. And, if there were no police, you would still have/need this physical response to maintain some type of social order/peace. This is probably even more the case these days because most trade is done symbolically through currency of some ilk (making it near impossible to exist without a job or source of income). It's hard enough just trying to find a place to sit down in public without being badgered (seriously, if you're in almost any city in America, look and see how many places you could stop and sit down comfortably without also having to pay for a good or service). All this sometimes make mere existence feel like a crime, as if you start out life by loitering.

But is a mob or a vigilante preferable to the police? I still think that's a discussion worth having.

All that being said, this book lays bare in stark terms the systemic racism, unaccountable authority/power, and ingrained bias in the police and how those who are comfortable live their lives with very little interaction with the police (largely viewing them as a helpful service) versus those who are poor and/or minority, who live their lives in fear of and being continually harassed by the police. From emotionally neutral phrases masking violence/bias like "Officer Involved Shooting" (which usually means a police officer shot another human being) and "NHI" (No Human Involved--used to refer to incidents where only gang members were injured or violence involved black-on-black crime) to practices like "rough rides" (where suspects are driven unsecured and allowed to bounce around during transport in the back of a metal van)---it would be nice to think these are isolated incidents or a few "bad apples" but it is a mindset now baked into both the procedures and the official language used by officers of the law.

I tend to think the police seem have a pretty thankless job where they confront the public at its worst and must make split-second life or death decisions. As an institution, they reflect the same biases and flaws of whatever culture society they serve. The problem is in the degree of discretion and power they may wield---you give them too much and abuse become insidious and deadly; you give them too little and they're either ineffective or likely to become corrupt.
-----------------------------------------------

An example of racism and dehumanization mentioned in the book---photo of former Chicago police officers posing with a suspect as if he were a hunting trophy.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A critical and oppositional look at the functions and justifying philosophies of the police. Recommended reading even if you already consider yourself anti-police for thoughtful consideration on how much even conversations critical of cops are filtered through cop logic. If you do read, definitely skip around from definition to definition as is recommended in the introduction. There's some purposeful redundancy in the entries to facilitate that style of reading and it can get a bit repetitive if you insist on reading the entire thing chronologically like me.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conservative Trigger Warning: This book will inflame strong feelings in persons who believe in the police department, or who love a peace officer.

The book is certain to bring up strong feelings in all readers, regardless of your views about society. The authors want police departments to be disbanded throughout the USA, because they exercise state-sanctioned violence.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm finding it hard to rate this book. Generally, the the historical facts, and assessment of them are compelling. Generally I agree with the broad conclusions drawn, and in each individual definition given in this encyclopedia style book I agree with arguments that show how individual tactics and tools lead to, and are weapons of, police violence and state sanctioned violence, that disproportionately affects BIPOC and the poor, in the interests of a capitalist system.

The thing I don't buy is some of the readings and analyses of tools beyond their impact. The mythologies behind the tools and practices that the authors give them. Don't get me wrong, it's terrifying that police use starlight tours to deport natives into out of town areas and kill them, the action is deplorable. But I'm not sure the police are thinking deeply enough about it that their intention is the one ascribed to them by the authors, to instill some colonial fear into their victims. Maybe I'm not giving the intelligence of the police enough credit?

At the same time, there are frequent references to continental philosophers, and I'm not familiar with the continental method of philosphy, so all of this discussion of intention and (what I think might be) psychoanalysis of action could be par for the course, and I'm just wrong, coming to it totally uninitiated.

[Freso :watermelon: · Rating 5 out of 5]

Copspeak works because it is convincing to so many.

This is an excellent work reframing and rephrasing numerous common terms and phrases used both by cops themselves, people whose interests cops are upholding (the propertied class), and people who argue for police reform rather than full abolition.

It uses linguistics to cover etymological roots and connections, historical analysis to show how many of the “new” things in policing are actually old, philosophical argumentation and discovery, and otherwise crosses into several disciplines to uncover the meanings of what police say – and by extension what they actually mean.

I read this front to back and felt it actually read fairly well this way, but note that this is not the way the author meant for it to be used. It is meant to be a reference work, a field guide. When you come across a term and you go “wait, what’s actually going on here” you can then look it up, and possibly follow references around to other terms. I imagine I will refer back to the book in this way, but I also think I’ll be glad that I read it through entirely once, so I have an idea of what is in here.

This definitely deserves a spot on the shelf for anyone engaging with questions of police and/or policing.

The only way to improve the police is to abolish it.

[Martin Hare Michno · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read about half of it, but could not finish. It reads like a dictionary and often repetitive. The book is divided into brief chapters, each on a specific concept or object related to the police force (e.g. objects such as handcuffs, Tasers, guns, nightstick, badge; and concepts such as violence, law, order, 'thin blue line', etc). Each concept is kind of 'deconstructed', insofar as the author sometimes relates how the weapons originated in settler-colonialism, or a used to mystify police violence, or how police use force to protect capitalist property relations. I found some of it interesting, but by dividing each idea into such small parts the main arguments Correia is trying to put worth are fragmented, there's absolutely no flow or consistency. It doesn't help that the author hardly bothers to construct a proper argument and often makes messy assumptions which - even if I agree with him - are hardly explained.

Like the title says, it's a field guide and so it is written like a dictionary. Unfortunately, this structure doesn't really do justice to Correira's ideas. I can imagine myself using this book as some sort of reference guide or something.

[Chai King-James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read this book due to a course that I did back in my undergrad.

It was quite as bias as I thought it would be.

The police are a culture on its own beyond the actually aspects of the work. This "field guide" really is just another way of explaining the problems within police organizations.

There is a lack of the moral good that was supposed to be the purpose of the policing model in Western civilizations nor is there talks of the benefits of having them in the first place. So unless you want to know all there is about military government and politics from an American perspective, I would avoid this work. Not horrible.. though hard to really grasp anything you did not already assume.

[Izaak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid introduction to a leftist critique and analysis behind the police. However, it, unfortunately, resides in the camp of critiquing police culture without trying to improve upon it. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but reading these passages without suggestions for a left-aligned improvement would be preferred. It's not that these critiques aren't insightful, but they only provide a step in changing the narrative towards police abolition. After all, "the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the language here occasionally veered into overly-theoretical territory (to the point of losing the thread once or twice), overall this was an excellent resource serving as a calibration point to counterbalance what the authors describe as "the police definition of reality." The format of the text in digestible pieces which can be referenced and read through non-linearly also suited the content nicely.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't get over this book and how important and absolutely mind blowing it is (The police acronym NHI was something I'd never heard of, and my jaw is still on the floor). Forget all other books: this is the one I have to spend the rest of my life telling everyone else to read!!! Fuck the police.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This being a Verso publication about police abolition, I expected to really like this one, and I enjoyed this quite a bit! Though I did have my few frustrations with it.

This is less of one cohesive piece of writing and more a dictionary of copspeak terms with micro-essays attached. So, you will find the word "gun" or "Officer Friendly" or "threat", and a short 2-3 page writeup of how his item or concept is used as part of policing's arsenal of oppression. The entries I found most illuminating were those that either presented new concepts I was not aware of ("NHI", "Challenge Coin") or provided additional context and statistics to terms we now see as everyday ("taser", "rough ride", "rubber bullets"). The case studies and pure reporting numbers here really helped illuminate how pervasive, institutional, and deadly these everyday acts of cruelty are.

I also found the central thesis that ties many of these entries together quite solid. This being, many of the terms and ideas we use when talking about policing issues simply reinforce the "bad apple" idea rather than acknowledge how systemic these issues are. Think about a term like "excessive force". This tells us that there is actually a reasonable amount of force that situationally should be used by police, and since "force" can by synonymous with "violence" in this context, that police violence is in and of itself not a bad thing. Since these situations are often created ("stop and frisk", "traffic stop", "red brigade", "broken windows") and escalated ("kettling", "continuum of force", "compliance") by the police themselves, there is actually no amount of force or violence that should ever be considered reasonable.

Where this book lost me sometimes was where it falls into semiotics and etymology. While I understand that modern policing does derive from "slave patrols", drawing tenuous linguistic connections and finding minor commonalities does not really do anything to confront what we have now. The same could be said for an entry like "starlight tours", which takes an unspeakable act of cruelty and murder and tries to add a level of symbolic humiliation to it as well, which I just don't believe is there in the moment.

However, those are minor entries that left me a little underwhelmed. On the whole, I think this is a great abolitionist reference piece, and would strongly recommend it to those looking to be able to speak on these issues with more clarity and specificity.

[Alan Riggio · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells about some of the tools and techniques that police officers use. Some of the interesting things that the authors of this book mentioned in it include the following: To be handcuffed is not a pleasant experience. If a person is arrested the police will cuff the person's wrists together tightly behind the person's back, often for hours. Once handcuffed there is nothing the police can't do physically to the suspect. To be handcuffed is to be controlled. Once a police officer handcuffs a subject, that subject is at the mercy of the police and the government. There are lingering aches that come from being handcuffed. Surveillance extends police power by maximizing and intensifying its reach. Surveillance is intended to overcome the physical limits of the police officer walking the beat, or driving the police car. Surveillance allows the police to be everywhere without being everywhere.

[Samson Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent introduction into police abolition. Instead of hard theory, it instead takes the approach of dismantling copspeak and how police describe the world.
By dismantling their language, the book masterfully exposes true nature of police, who they serve, their actions and also exposes the pitfalls of police reform.
Thoroughly recommend to anyone wanting to better understand police and police abolition.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Wall taught one my favorite ever undergrad classes, and it was from him that I first learned about “broken windows” theory. So maybe I’m biased, but I think this book is a great contribution to the literature regarding how police and the state use language to legitimize themselves. Very illuminating.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Give this to your liberal friends who insist that their uncle is "one of the good ones". A lot of the information is stuff that an adult should really know by now (not a knock on the book or the author, as the information is concise and accurate), but you gotta start deprogramming heavily propagandized Americans somewhere.

[Sian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really useful starting point for learning key terms with regards to (mostly american) policing, I'd be really interested in reading a book like this on British policing. Three stars mainly because it's a bit dry.

[Oh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hopefully this becomes out dated soon

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear eyed & informative

[Ash Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Viewing police and policing a culture and belief system that seeks to perpetuate itself is both fascinating and terrifying.

[Nik · Rating 4 out of 5]

very good, points both well fleshed out and digestible

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a painfully informative book. In a surprisingly effective non-linear manner, it provides a great deal of information.

[Navin Nielsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good deprograming book- taking away ideas like less lethal weapons and understanding that tear gas doesn’t just cause you to cry a bit.

[Maggie Haberman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent break down of the significance of copspeak and its destructive presence in our society.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Correia
Police: A Field Guide
Verso
288 pages
7.8