Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community - Softcover

Herbert, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226327310 ISBN 13: 9780226327310

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2006

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Steve Herbert is associate professor in the Department of Geography and the Law, Societies, and Justice Program at the University of Washington. He is the author of Policing Space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police Department.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226327310
• ISBN 13: 9780226327310
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 190