Verso Books Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter

Collects the writings of activists from the #BlackLivesMatter movement which comment on police brutality and social injustice. Policing has become one of the urgent issues of our time, the target of dramatic movements and front-page coverage from coast to coast in the United States, and, indeed, across the world. Now a star-studded, wide-ranging collection of writers and activists offers a global response, describing ongoing struggles over policing from New York to Ferguson to Los Angeles, as well as London, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, and Mexico City.This book, combining first-hand accounts from organizers with the research of eminent scholars and contributions by leading artists, traces the global rise of the "broken-windows" style of policing, first established in New York City under Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, a doctrine that has vastly increased and broadened police power and contributed to the contemporary crisis of policing that has been sparked by notorious incidents of police brutality and killings. With contributions from Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors, Ferguson activist and St. Louis University law professor Justin Hansford, scholars Vijay Prashad and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Pakistani writer and politician Hamid Khan, and many more. Autorid: Christina Heatherton, George Lipsitz, Jordan T. Camp, Robin DG Kelley, Anjali Kamat, Arun Kundnani, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Vijay Prashad, Alex S. Vitale, Alex Sanchez