Policing the Poor: From Slave Plantation to Public Housing (Northeastern Series on Gender, Crime, and Law)
by Neil Websdale
Category: Political Science

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 this book focuses on the history, experiences, and perspectives of the people whose lives are most affected by today's policing strategies. 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. Websdale's hard-hitting look at community policing and its negative impact on the urban poor provides a balance to prevailing optimistic views on the effectiveness of this new method of law enforcement.