Law Enforcement

Law Prof. Joanna Schwartz on How the Police Became Untouchable

Policies that protect individual officers from civil liability, and departments from financial responsibility, have developed into a legal architecture of impunity for American police. 

Released FBI File Shows Extent of Government Spying on Aretha Franklin

Beverly Gage says the surveillance was par for the course under J. Edgar Hoover's leadership, when Black figures with any suspected links to civil rights or militant politics was a target.

Far Right Presence in Law Enforcement is Scary, but Not New

by Anna Duensing

Edwin Walker oversaw the National Guard's enforcement of integration in Little Rock out of duty. He held a personal repugnance of integration and soon traded his military career for the far right. Today's Oath Keepers are his political descendants.

Inside Riotville: How the Military and the Police Prepared for Domestic Rebellion

by Bench Ansfield

“Riotsville” was the name the Army gave to the training grounds it built, beginning in 1967, to school police departments and military personnel in the art of domestic counterinsurgency. Sierra Pettengill's new documentary tells its story. 

Law Enforcement Has Long Practiced Double Standards for Activists

by Denise Lynn

Nobody should be shocked that the FBI has aggressively surveilled Black Lives Matter organizers while deciding that the online organizing of the January 6 attack on the Capitol was protected speech; this double standard has characterized law enforcement's approach to racial justice protest. 

The Resurrection of Bass Reeves: Was the Real "Lone Ranger" Black?

Only recently has popular culture revived interest in Bass Reeves, one of the first Black men to serve as a US Marshal, and the scourge of Texas fugitives. 

Should Immigration Courts Operate under the Attorney General? History Says this is an Accident that Should be Undone

by Alison Peck

Franklin Roosevelt was pushed fear of a Nazi fifth column and big business's hostility toward foreign-born labor leaders to shift immigration courts from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice, where they act as an extension of law enforcement. Legislation to make them independent is long overdue. 

The County Where Cops Call the Shots

Aaron Bekemeyer's PhD dissertation research examines how police unions, like those in Suffolk County, NY, became powerful in the 20th Century. Jennifer Mittelstadt also comments on the exceptional status of police unions.

What the Policing Response to the KKK in the 1960s Can Teach about Dismantling White Supremacist Groups Today

by David Cunningham

If history is a guide, providing police with new tools to address current white nationalist threats could result in further repression of activists of color.

Police Forces Have Long Tried to Weed Out Extremists in the Ranks. Then Came the Capitol Riot

The Capitol riots highlight the dangerous potential for far right extremists to operate inside police departments, as well as official ignorance of the scope of the problem. 

Why a Shootout Between Black Panthers and Law Enforcement 50 Years Ago Matters Today

by Paul Ringel

A 50 year-old police attack on members of the High Point chapter of the Black Panther Party has been largely forgotten, but it shows the historical development of a pattern of law enforcement that targets Black militants and allows white supremacist radicals free rein. 

A New Photo Exhibit Looks At Decades Of FBI Surveillance On American Citizens

Christopher Gregory-Rivera's new exhibit documents the FBI's surveillance, in concert with Puerto Rican authorities, of private citizens suspected of involvement in the island's independence movement.

UCLA Wins $3.65-Million Grant to Build ‘Age of Mass Incarceration’ Archive with LAPD Records

In addition to 177 boxes of LAPD records, which the university fought for and won access to in court, the project will seek out and include oral histories and other ephemera from community members who were affected by the region’s aggressive criminal justice pipelines, said professor Kelly Lytle Hernández.

What Obama Gets Wrong on 'Defund the Police'

by Austin McCoy

"If political budgets are moral documents, then divesting heavily from institutions that have the capacity to perpetuate harms is the moral thing to do."

A Lesser-Known Trump Immigration Policy Needs Biden’s Attention

by Smita Ghosh

Biden should reverse the Trump policy of using "expedited removal" to deport migrants without a hearing, which is part of a historical pattern of deportation programs that harm communities, separate families, and sometimes result in legal residents being expelled from the United States.

Paul Revere Made the Boston Massacre a Flashpoint for Revolution.

by Philip Gerard

The incident that became known as the Boston Massacre didn't have to happen, and didn't have to become a flashpoint for violence after. As political tensions break into violence today, it's worthwhile to think about Boston in 1770.

How Segregationists Rushed Through The 1968 Rioting Laws DOJ Is Using In 2020

The Anti-Rioting Act was conceived as a way to suppress civil rights protests in the 1960s and today may be invoked to charge participants in protests with serious federal crimes.  

Unredacted FBI Document Sheds New Light on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement

A 2006 intelligence assessment reveals that officials had concerns about the infiltration of police departments for years but failed to warn the public. 

The Long History of Chemical Weapons in Civilian Law Enforcement

by Thomas Faith

Chemical weapons developed for World War I found their way into civilian policing to repress labor movements despite the objections of military leaders like General John Pershing. 

Though Often Mythologized, the Texas Rangers Have an Ugly History of Brutality

by Jonathan S. Jones

The link between racial violence and Texas law enforcement goes all the way back to the state’s original police force, the Texas Rangers.