Street Justice

Marilynn S. Johnson

In this study of police brutality in New York City, Marilynn Johnson explores the changing patterns of police use of force over the past 160 years, including streat beatings, organized violence against protestors, and the notorious third degree. She argues that the idea of police brutality--what exactly it is, who its victims are, and why it occurs--is historically constructed. In the late nineteenth century police brutality was understood as an outgrowth of the moral and political corruption of Tammany Hall; in the heavy immigration years of the early twentieth century it was redefined as a racial/ethnic issue; and during Prohibition police violence was connected to police corruption related to the underground liquor trade and the "war on crime" the federal government declared in response. Providing a history of police brutality up to the present day, Street justice emphasizes the...

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