Street justice : a history of police violence in New York City / Marilynn Johnson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Johnson, Marilynn S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Police brutality--New York (State)--New York--History.

Police brutality.

History.

New York (State)--New York.

Physical Description:

365 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Boston, Ma. : Beacon Press, [2003]

Summary:

"Street Justice is a lively account of a depressing subject- police brutality (and the efforts to curb it) in New York City from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth. Informative, absorbing, and often highly perceptive, it should be rewarding reading not only for historians, but also for anyone interested in policing, police reform, and, not least of all, New York City." -Robert M. Fogelson, author of Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880-1950, and The Fragmented Metropolis "This fascinating book traces controversies about police violence back to the very origins of the New York Police. The author wisely treats the entire issue as a perennial set of political problems, thus reflecting the changing ethnic, social and political dynamics in the city. Although the use of violence has in some ways diminished, administrators have never ceased to minimize it, from the first day to the present." -Paul Chevigny, Professor of Law at NYU Law School, and author of Edge of the Knife: Police Violence in the Americas. In this study of police brutality in New York City, Marilynn Johnson explores the changing patterns of police use of force over the past 160 years, including streat beatings, organized violence against protestors, and the notorious third degree. She argues that the idea of police brutality--what exactly it is, who its victims are, and why it occurs--is historically constructed. In the late nineteenth century police brutality was understood as an outgrowth of the moral and political corruption of Tammany Hall; in the heavy immigration years of the early twentieth century it was redefined as a racial/ethnic issue; and during Prohibition police violence was connected topolice corruption related to the underground liquor trade and the "war on crime" the federal government declared in response. Providing a history of police brutality up to the present day, Street Justice emphasizes the understandings brought to the subject by its victims, and reveals a long and disturbing history of police misconduct against minorities. But Johnson also argues that the culture of policing can be changed when enough political pressure is brought to bear on the problem. Marilynn S. Johnson is associate professor of history at Boston College and the author of The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II. Born and raised in New York, she now lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Contents:

Chapter 1 "The Clubbers and the Clubbed": Police Violence in the Nineteenth Century 12

Chapter 2 Riots and the Racialization of Police Brutality, 1900-1911 57

Chapter 3 Brutality and Reform in the Progressive Era 87

Chapter 4 Prohibition, the War on Crime, and the Fight against the Third Degree 114

Chapter 5 Police, Labor, and Radicals in the Great Depression 149

Chapter 6 The Resurgence of Race 181

Chapter 7 Storming the Barricades: The 1960s 229

Chapter 8 Will the Cycle Be Unbroken? 277.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-345) and index.

ISBN:

0807050229

OCLC:

52514365

Online:

Publisher description