Policing and Race

The reaction to Ferguson, the murder of Trayvon Martin and other police-related deaths around the US has brought race and the criminal justice system to the forefront of current scholarly discussion. However, unlike the past, racial realism has been brought to the front line via expressions from those affected by police mistreatment as well as official reports from the Department of Justice and social justice advocacy groups. Although a public conversation has begun, lacking within this discourse is a cogent forthright criminological assessment that includes expressions and namely experiences from those affected by police-violence

Drawing on a range of approaches including conflict, critical race, and social control theories, this book provides a comprehensive theoretical review of the need for a critical historical intersectional theory of policing and race. Disrupting the obsolescence of racial realism in policing literature, this book also discusses the social and democratic implications of using critical historical intersectional analyzes in criminological research involving race.

Jason Williams is Assistant Professor at the School of Criminal Justice, Political Science, and International Studies, Fairleigh Dickinson University.