What do you think?
Rate this book
Policing the Poor: From Slave Plantation to Public Housing
While many applaud the apparent successes of community and saturation policing, Neil Websdale contends instead that such law enforcement initiatives oppress rather than protect the poor, particularly African Americans in large urban centers. Based on a groundbreaking ethnographic study of public housing projects in Nashville, Tennessee, he argues persuasively that community policing is a critical component of a criminal justice juggernaut designed to manage or regulate stigmatized populations, much like slave patrols served as agents for social control on Southern plantations.
In a work that is sure to stir controversy and heated debate, Websdale draws on extensive field research, documentary sources, and interviews to illuminate how a criminal justice system deeply rooted in racism and slavery destroys the black family, creates a form of selective breeding, and undermines the civil rights gains of the 1960s. Unlike previous studies of community policing, which analyze programs through the lens of law enforcement, this book focuses on the history, experiences, and perspectives of the people whose lives are most affected by today's policing strategies.
Skillfully blending the voices of project residents with a rich synthesis of historical, sociological, and criminological analysis, Websdale describes the situational, cultural, and economic circumstances of Nashville's poor; examines the policing of social upheaval by detailing events in the 1997 looting and burning of the Dollar General Store; considers African American kinship systems and the special circumstances of battered women; and discusses why the vice trades -- prostitution and selling drugs -- thrive in public housing projects.
Policing the Poor is a much-needed balance to prevailing optimistic views on the effectiveness of this new method of law enforcement.
In a work that is sure to stir controversy and heated debate, Websdale draws on extensive field research, documentary sources, and interviews to illuminate how a criminal justice system deeply rooted in racism and slavery destroys the black family, creates a form of selective breeding, and undermines the civil rights gains of the 1960s. Unlike previous studies of community policing, which analyze programs through the lens of law enforcement, this book focuses on the history, experiences, and perspectives of the people whose lives are most affected by today's policing strategies.
Skillfully blending the voices of project residents with a rich synthesis of historical, sociological, and criminological analysis, Websdale describes the situational, cultural, and economic circumstances of Nashville's poor; examines the policing of social upheaval by detailing events in the 1997 looting and burning of the Dollar General Store; considers African American kinship systems and the special circumstances of battered women; and discusses why the vice trades -- prostitution and selling drugs -- thrive in public housing projects.
Policing the Poor is a much-needed balance to prevailing optimistic views on the effectiveness of this new method of law enforcement.
- GenresNonfiction
289 pages, Paperback
First published September 13, 2001
71 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 11, 2020
Neil Websdale’s 2001 book Policing the poor: from slave plantation to public housing (Northeastern University Press) examines the origins and practice of community policing in the black urban poor neighborhoods of Nashville. Websdale weaves sociological and historical analysis alongside the stories of public housing residents and those of the police who patrol them. From the perspective of an outsider (he is white Englishmen and Professor of Criminal Justice) he examines various aspects of community policing and housing. Each of these adds to his contention that community policing is “a principal means of rolling back or undermining civil rights gains made by blacks from 1954 to 1968.” (p. 33)
Websdale’s approach to examining this complex subject is a winning one. He is highly critical of the “constipated analysis” of community policing, calling it technical and administrative. He also notes that it overlooks the historical roots of crime and urban blight (p. 191.) After spending a year talking to residents and community police in the Nashville area, Websdale is able to offer us a more holistic framework. By putting the stories he gathers together with historical analysis, he reframes the agency of these individuals. This is an important point, which he makes in his introduction by quoting Karl Marx: “People may make their own history, ‘but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” (p. 12)
Policing the Poor navigates many topics within each of it’s six chapters, a format I found a little confusing – as if they were compilations of previously published essays. However there are several arguments that run through the book. One consistent framework for the book is the connections between the American slave trade, in which millions of Africans were stolen from their home country, the paternalism of the slave owning system of the south, and the rise of black public housing projects during what he calls the “twentieth century redemption.” (p. 8)
While slaves in America did not participate in mass uprisings such as those seen in the Caribbean or Brazil, they negotiated and resisted in a variety of ways. In the American South, only a quarter of slaves lived on plantations with more than 50 slaves, and half of the slave population were on farms, not plantations. This meant that, unlike on the large plantations in Brazil and Caribbean, slaves were more likely to be under the direct surveillance of their white masters. The use of passes to visit family on neighboring farms, granted by the masters, demonstrates just one way in which the movements of slaves and kinship were controlled. (p. 17)
Slave patrols served to enforce this control, and served to protect the white owners from losing the slaves they saw as their property. Patrollers were generally from working or lower middle class families, much like the modern American police force. While instances of solidarity between these two exploited groups did occur, slave codes and increased intensity of slave patrols served the upper class by amplifying divisions (p. 21.) Connecting this history to urban industrial labor control, and then to modern models of community policing, Websdale draws a disturbingly uninterrupted line. In order to understand the problems of the urban poor, which brought about community policing, this connection must be strengthened in our common understanding of the country. This means understanding the problem of the urban ghetto as one with very old roots created by capitalism and racism.
I think a closer examination of the origin of the American policing model would have strengthened this chapter. I also thought that the Freedman’s bureau should have been discussed as an important component in transitioning “from slave plantation to public housing,” and an important part of the community in community policing.
The unique strength of this book is the inclusion of first hand narrative accounts from residents and police. There are many stories, particularly those of the women he interviewed, which illustrate the difficult and often terrifying living conditions in these underserved housing projects. Attempts to improve the social conditions of the most vulnerable populations will always fail when they are blamed for their own victimization. The clear connections made in this book, through interviews and historical analysis, steer readers away from the conclusions of Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1965, who argued that crime and the rise of black single mother families were an endemic part of ‘ghetto culture’ rooted in slavery. Instead, readers are made to understand crime and the prevalence of single mother families as a result of global capitalism and over policing.
While living precariously requires creativity many living outside the housing projects could not imagine, there is little mention of artistic creativity in the interviews. The one example connecting art and poverty in this book is in a story about dumpster fires. The setting for this story is in the ‘dense, drab’ Edgehill projects, whose close quarters afford little privacy to its residents. Officials were routinely called in to put out dumpster fires in the area, which they thought were expressions of irresponsible residents acting out. Officer Olsen, who patrolled the area on bike as part of the community policing model, was eventually able to find out the real reason behind the fires. Rather than antisocial, irrational acts of destruction, the fires were a response to the lack of waste removal services in the area. Residents would set fire to the dumpsters rather than endure the wafting stench of sun heated, week old garbage. Police officers were able to explain this situation to public works administrators, who increased trash removal to twice a week. The fires stopped. Websdale describes what happened next: “…children in the neighborhood began painting the charred dumpsters…Likewise, the wall that cordons off the south end of the John Henry Hale projects from Charlotte Avenue is painted beautifully, reminding us that artistic inner city energy coexsts with crack pipes, fatigued faces, and street violence.” p. 42
While this may seem to be evidence of the success of the community police model, I don’t believe that was Websdale’s point in including it. I’m reminded of the Malcolm X quote, “If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that’s not progress.” Relief and reform of oppressive conditions should be fought for, but they do not change the systems that led to them. This is why Alex Hayes, a resident of the J.C Napier Homes and one of the interviewees, “sees little to wonder at” in the painted dumpsters (p. 78.)
The last idea I’d like to explore is that of the social criminal, from the chapter “Policing Social Upheaval.” In this chapter we learn the details of Leon Fishers murder by police in 1997. Fisher was shot and killed in the parking lot of a dollar general store outside of the Sam Levy / Settle Court homes in Nashville. What happened exactly in the moments before his death can’t be known for certain, but the fact that it started with a traffic violation is agreed upon. Leon Fisher had a negative history with police, and was suspected of murder earlier that year (there is no mention of police officers prior involvement with shooting black men or engaging in excessive force.) The point in telling the reader Leon Fishers background is not, in this case, to paint him as deserving or undeserving, but as context for the framework Websdale is trying to lay. The real interest of this chapter is in the various community responses to the shooting and connecting it to the history of slavery and ongoing oppression.
Some people in the community saw Leon Fisher as a ‘social bandit,’ in that he was known to engage in certain types of criminal activity, but was protected and claimed by his community. Examples of social bandits or social criminals given include smugglers, poachers, re-claimers of lost cargo, and others trading on the black market (p. 81.) Looters could also fall into this category of social bandit. What makes someone a looter versus a finder or good provider is where they stand with the State and with their community. Social criminals may not seen as betraying or negatively impacting their community, but may actually be seen as heroic. They may provide for their family and community by extra legal means.
The interviews in this chapter do not provide a homogenous view of Leon Fishers death or the aftermath. Some residents are convinced Fisher was shot while in handcuffs, and see his murder as a cut and dry case of police brutality. Others concede that he may have escalated the situation. The same is true of peoples reactions to the looting. The dollar store which was looted and burned down was a resource to the community, and many mourned its destruction. At the same time, many young men and women participated in the action and stood to gain from it. But rather than painting a picture of a confused and divided community, this chapter demonstrates the complex and inextricably related social elements at work.
At the opening of the chapter, a series of questions are proposed: was Fisher “a common thug? A murderer? Did his acts constitute common forms of street crime, or did they mean more?” Websdale concludes that, given the limited formal rights residents have, the mass surveillance and threat of police violence, and economic disparity they experience, these examples of social banditry must be seen as more than destructive behavior. They must be seen in terms of survival and protest.
Websdale’s approach to examining this complex subject is a winning one. He is highly critical of the “constipated analysis” of community policing, calling it technical and administrative. He also notes that it overlooks the historical roots of crime and urban blight (p. 191.) After spending a year talking to residents and community police in the Nashville area, Websdale is able to offer us a more holistic framework. By putting the stories he gathers together with historical analysis, he reframes the agency of these individuals. This is an important point, which he makes in his introduction by quoting Karl Marx: “People may make their own history, ‘but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” (p. 12)
Policing the Poor navigates many topics within each of it’s six chapters, a format I found a little confusing – as if they were compilations of previously published essays. However there are several arguments that run through the book. One consistent framework for the book is the connections between the American slave trade, in which millions of Africans were stolen from their home country, the paternalism of the slave owning system of the south, and the rise of black public housing projects during what he calls the “twentieth century redemption.” (p. 8)
While slaves in America did not participate in mass uprisings such as those seen in the Caribbean or Brazil, they negotiated and resisted in a variety of ways. In the American South, only a quarter of slaves lived on plantations with more than 50 slaves, and half of the slave population were on farms, not plantations. This meant that, unlike on the large plantations in Brazil and Caribbean, slaves were more likely to be under the direct surveillance of their white masters. The use of passes to visit family on neighboring farms, granted by the masters, demonstrates just one way in which the movements of slaves and kinship were controlled. (p. 17)
Slave patrols served to enforce this control, and served to protect the white owners from losing the slaves they saw as their property. Patrollers were generally from working or lower middle class families, much like the modern American police force. While instances of solidarity between these two exploited groups did occur, slave codes and increased intensity of slave patrols served the upper class by amplifying divisions (p. 21.) Connecting this history to urban industrial labor control, and then to modern models of community policing, Websdale draws a disturbingly uninterrupted line. In order to understand the problems of the urban poor, which brought about community policing, this connection must be strengthened in our common understanding of the country. This means understanding the problem of the urban ghetto as one with very old roots created by capitalism and racism.
I think a closer examination of the origin of the American policing model would have strengthened this chapter. I also thought that the Freedman’s bureau should have been discussed as an important component in transitioning “from slave plantation to public housing,” and an important part of the community in community policing.
The unique strength of this book is the inclusion of first hand narrative accounts from residents and police. There are many stories, particularly those of the women he interviewed, which illustrate the difficult and often terrifying living conditions in these underserved housing projects. Attempts to improve the social conditions of the most vulnerable populations will always fail when they are blamed for their own victimization. The clear connections made in this book, through interviews and historical analysis, steer readers away from the conclusions of Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1965, who argued that crime and the rise of black single mother families were an endemic part of ‘ghetto culture’ rooted in slavery. Instead, readers are made to understand crime and the prevalence of single mother families as a result of global capitalism and over policing.
While living precariously requires creativity many living outside the housing projects could not imagine, there is little mention of artistic creativity in the interviews. The one example connecting art and poverty in this book is in a story about dumpster fires. The setting for this story is in the ‘dense, drab’ Edgehill projects, whose close quarters afford little privacy to its residents. Officials were routinely called in to put out dumpster fires in the area, which they thought were expressions of irresponsible residents acting out. Officer Olsen, who patrolled the area on bike as part of the community policing model, was eventually able to find out the real reason behind the fires. Rather than antisocial, irrational acts of destruction, the fires were a response to the lack of waste removal services in the area. Residents would set fire to the dumpsters rather than endure the wafting stench of sun heated, week old garbage. Police officers were able to explain this situation to public works administrators, who increased trash removal to twice a week. The fires stopped. Websdale describes what happened next: “…children in the neighborhood began painting the charred dumpsters…Likewise, the wall that cordons off the south end of the John Henry Hale projects from Charlotte Avenue is painted beautifully, reminding us that artistic inner city energy coexsts with crack pipes, fatigued faces, and street violence.” p. 42
While this may seem to be evidence of the success of the community police model, I don’t believe that was Websdale’s point in including it. I’m reminded of the Malcolm X quote, “If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that’s not progress.” Relief and reform of oppressive conditions should be fought for, but they do not change the systems that led to them. This is why Alex Hayes, a resident of the J.C Napier Homes and one of the interviewees, “sees little to wonder at” in the painted dumpsters (p. 78.)
The last idea I’d like to explore is that of the social criminal, from the chapter “Policing Social Upheaval.” In this chapter we learn the details of Leon Fishers murder by police in 1997. Fisher was shot and killed in the parking lot of a dollar general store outside of the Sam Levy / Settle Court homes in Nashville. What happened exactly in the moments before his death can’t be known for certain, but the fact that it started with a traffic violation is agreed upon. Leon Fisher had a negative history with police, and was suspected of murder earlier that year (there is no mention of police officers prior involvement with shooting black men or engaging in excessive force.) The point in telling the reader Leon Fishers background is not, in this case, to paint him as deserving or undeserving, but as context for the framework Websdale is trying to lay. The real interest of this chapter is in the various community responses to the shooting and connecting it to the history of slavery and ongoing oppression.
Some people in the community saw Leon Fisher as a ‘social bandit,’ in that he was known to engage in certain types of criminal activity, but was protected and claimed by his community. Examples of social bandits or social criminals given include smugglers, poachers, re-claimers of lost cargo, and others trading on the black market (p. 81.) Looters could also fall into this category of social bandit. What makes someone a looter versus a finder or good provider is where they stand with the State and with their community. Social criminals may not seen as betraying or negatively impacting their community, but may actually be seen as heroic. They may provide for their family and community by extra legal means.
The interviews in this chapter do not provide a homogenous view of Leon Fishers death or the aftermath. Some residents are convinced Fisher was shot while in handcuffs, and see his murder as a cut and dry case of police brutality. Others concede that he may have escalated the situation. The same is true of peoples reactions to the looting. The dollar store which was looted and burned down was a resource to the community, and many mourned its destruction. At the same time, many young men and women participated in the action and stood to gain from it. But rather than painting a picture of a confused and divided community, this chapter demonstrates the complex and inextricably related social elements at work.
At the opening of the chapter, a series of questions are proposed: was Fisher “a common thug? A murderer? Did his acts constitute common forms of street crime, or did they mean more?” Websdale concludes that, given the limited formal rights residents have, the mass surveillance and threat of police violence, and economic disparity they experience, these examples of social banditry must be seen as more than destructive behavior. They must be seen in terms of survival and protest.
March 11, 2012
had some interesting case studies but lacked a coherent thread and was seriously marred by sensationalism. I don't know what I was expecting, it was apparent from the first chapter that the author was the ultimate gawking white guy who incidentally needs to be barred from ever talking about pimps.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews