To Protect and Serve: How to Fix America's Police

by Norm Stamper Narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner

Overview

American policing is in crisis. The last decade witnessed a vast increase in police aggression, misconduct, and militarization, along with a corresponding reduction in transparency and accountability. Nowhere is this more noticeable and painful than in African American and other ethnic minority communities. Racism-from raw, individualized versions to insidious systemic examples-appears to be on the rise in our police departments. Overall, our police officers have grown more and more alienated from the people they've been hired to serve. In To Protect and To Serve, Norm Stamper offers new insights into the conditions that have created this crisis, reminding us that police in a democratic society belong to the people-and not the other way around.

To Protect and To Serve also delivers a revolutionary new model for American law enforcement: the community-based police department. It calls for citizen participation in all aspects of police operations: policymaking, program development, crime fighting and service delivery, entry-level and ongoing education and training, oversight of police conduct, and, especially relevant to today's challenges, joint community-police crisis management. Nothing will ever change until the system itself is radically restructured, and here Norm Stamper shows us how.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

“This is a book America has been waiting for–a top cop's searing expose of corrupt, bigoted, brutal and trigger-happy policing in America and how to fix a broken system. It's the inside story, an MRI from former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, showing good cops taking risks to protect us all, to cities balancing the books with police fines, militarization run amok, and a police culture off the rails. Now, says Stamper, the mindset behind the badge has to focus first on public safety, crime, and collaboration not confrontation, with communities asserting control and clear federal standards to insure accountability. And he shows how it can be done.” –Hedrick Smith, author of Who Stole the American Dream? and Executive Editor of Reclaim The American Dream

“Most of the nation's approximately 18,000 police departments receive scathing criticism from one of their own…. A vivid, well-written, vitally important book.” –Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“A blistering structural critique of U.S. law enforcement… By emphasizing institutional change, Stamper makes a brave attempt to answer the common question (one asked whenever another unarmed African-American is shot by police), where are all the good cops?” –Publishers Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2016-03-28
Most of the nation's approximately 18,000 police departments receive scathing criticism from one of their own: an author who began as a San Diego beat cop in 1966 and rose to become a police chief in Seattle. Stamper follows up his first book (Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing, 2005) with a more contemporary—and more critical—account. He concludes that police departments as currently structured—akin to military units with force as a dominant characteristic—must be rebuilt. The author recognizes that almost every police agency includes a majority of uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives who place polite, effective service above brute force. However, he maintains, the rogue cops, although a minority, too often exercise undue influence, infecting everybody with their negative attitudes toward minority and mentally ill citizens, who deserve respect rather than stigmatizing. Stamper offers evidence that the problems transcend a small number of bad apples; he says the barrel is rotten and must be replaced. One solution must come from outside the police agencies: an end to the so-called war on drugs, which has spawned so much violence, both directed at and initiated by the police. Stamper would like to see legislatures and courts treat narcotics such as crack cocaine and heroin the same way alcohol is treated currently, as a public health matter leading to criminal charges only when drinkers harm other people. The remainder of Stamper's suggested solutions involve reconstituting agencies to replace the military command structure and mentality with a social services structure emphasizing nonviolent problem-solving over force. Ideally, Stamper would increase the number of female police street officers and commanders, believing they make more empathetic, less violent cops. The author does not shy away from specific incidents of unarmed citizens killed by police; he explains, for example, why Michael Brown should never have died in Ferguson, Missouri. A vivid, well-written, vitally important book.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172697371
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	06/07/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

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