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List of contents
1. The Police, the Constitution, and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; 2. Technology and Privacy in the Era of Homeland Security; 3. Deadly Force: Compliance, Confrontation, and Consequences for African Americans; 4. Black Lives Matter: Interrogating and Challenging the Law Enforcement Narrative; 5. The "War Against the Police": The Fictive Response to the New Accountability; 6. The "Immigration Police": The Demonization of the "Other"; 7. "Soldier Up": The Consequences of Militarization for Communities of Color; 8. "Taking Off the Cuffs": Police Retrenchment and Resurgence; 9. Fusion Centers: An Unholy Alliance of Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement; 10. Perilous Policing: "That’s the Signpost Up Ahead"
About the author
Thomas Nolan has been an Associate Professor in Criminal Justice at Boston University, the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, and Merrimack College. He was a Senior Policy Advisor at the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., and a 27-year veteran (and former lieutenant) with the Boston Police Department. His doctoral work focused on moral probity among police officers, and his recent publications deal with such topics as civil rights and civil liberties in policing and constitutional issues of surveillance.
Summary
Perilous Policing provides an interrogatory to law enforcement practices. Including the police and marginalized populations, the use of surveillance technology, the Black Lives Matter movement and the erosion of police narrative, use of force against people of color, immigration enforcement, "war on cops," and police militarization
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A solid academic book tackling some of policing’s most important issues—written by a police practitioner/scholar. The topics are timely, and there couldn’t be a better time in our field for a policing book of this nature than now.
Peter Kraska, Professor, School of Justice Studies, Eastern Kentucky University, USA
Tom Nolan has produced this scholarly scrutiny that supplements his thirty-plus years of policing experience. It's an important book that should be widely read. Use it in your courses. The "narrative" of US law enforcement's too often violent interaction with the public it serves has rightly given way to a national conversation in the marketplace of ideas.
Wm. Peters, Coordinator for Legal Studies and Associate Professor of Criminal Justice State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, USA
The human race faces immense challenges: climate collapse, economic inequality, racism and nativism, mass migration, and crises in democratic governance. Cutting across all of these issues are the problems of police and policing. This timely book examines policing's role in upholding the status quo, and the failures of ostensibly free societies to rise to the challenge of adequately policing the police.
Kade Crockford, Director, Technology for Liberty Program, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, USA
Perilous Policing is provocative and well-written. It gives fresh insights into the service practices and patterns of policing. Tom Nolan utilizes his insider perspective to illuminate the modern issues that face police departments today. Unlike many other books on policing, Perilous Policing could be used in an upper-level undergraduate course, a graduate-level seminar, or by practitioners in the field.
Alexa D. Sardina Ph.D., Assistant Professor, California State University Sacramento Division of Criminal Justice, USA
This book is very timely with its focus on immigration, militarization and Black Lives Matter. While the book is based on American policing, these issues resonate globally, and policing has become increasingly contested and perilous (for citizens and for the police themselves).
Monique Marks, Research Professor, Urban Futures Centre, Durban University of Technology, South Africa
