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

Herbert, Steve

ISBN 10: 0226327310 / ISBN 13: 9780226327310

Published by University of Chicago Press, 2006

About this Item

Seller Inventory # BSM.14RHE

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226327310
• ISBN 13: 9780226327310
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: very_good

About this title

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 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.