Description

Policing a Class Society: New York City in the 1990s

Sid Harring and Gerda Ray revisit the notion of policing a class society — and apply the lessons of the 1970s to New York City in the 1990s. According to the authors, the reason Crime and Social Justice and criminologists of the 1970s focused on the police is obvious. It was basic self-defense, defense of our communities. The police were everywhere in the 1960s and 1970s, and they were deeply involved in all kinds of harassment, beatings, surveillance, killings, and arrests aimed at minority, student, counterculture, antiwar, leftist, and poor communities. Thus, the idea of “studying” the police made a great deal of sense; it was applied criminology, meant to be useful to the movement.

criminal justice, police

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 26, No. 2 (1999): 63-81