Social, political, and economic relationships played key roles in the historical development of the police. The authors present policing strategies from the vantage points of marginalized communities and emphasize the intersection of attitudes about class, race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation with policies. Police practices cannot be class neutral in a class society, nor can they be race neutral or gender neutral in a racist, sexist, and heterosexist society. The key to understanding the relationship between the police and society is to think critically about the role of power and interests. The second edition includes a new chapter in the section on the police and rebellion covering recent events. There is also a new chapter on Latino/a police officers and an expanded chapter on LGBTQ police officers. Without meaningful social change toward greater justice, police reforms such as community policing and training in cultural diversity will fall short of creating an institution characterized by fairness and equality for all members of society. A clear view of history is essential for understanding the challenges a more diverse police force faces in today’s multicultural environment.

Politicians, citizens, and police agencies have long embraced community policing, hoping to reduce crime and disorder by strengthening the ties between urban residents and the officers entrusted with their protection. That strategy seems to make sense, but in Citizens, Cops, and Power, Steve Herbert reveals the reasons why it rarely, if ever, works. Drawing on data he collected in diverse Seattle neighborhoods from interviews with residents, observation of police officers, and attendance at community-police meetings, Herbert identifies the many obstacles that make effective collaboration between city dwellers and the police so unlikely to succeed. At the same time, he shows that residents’ pragmatic ideas about the role of community differ dramatically from those held by social theorists. Surprising and provocative, Citizens, Cops, and Power provides a critical perspective not only on the future of community policing, but on the nature of state-society relations as well.

This collection attempts to make a contribution to the integration of policing into the broader social context by striving to facilitate systematic inquiry by students of policing.