![]() ![]() “The police,” he argues, “represent the most direct means by which the state imposes its will on the citizenry. They enforce the class and racial inequalities inherent in the capitalist system. Williams’s main thesis is that the police are, and have always been, an antidemocratic force in society. ![]() Kristian Williams’s Our Enemies in Blue, provides a sweeping and compelling account of the rise of the modern, professionalized police force. ![]() While neither book is new, both have acquired a practical utility, and are worthy of examination in light of present circumstances. Why does racialized, violent policing exist? Why are the police militarized? Are individual cops workers? Can they be reformed, demobilized, or dissolved altogether? Are there alternatives to the police? Two important books examine these questions, albeit from different perspectives. The Black Lives Matter Movement has exploded in reaction against this system and is propelling many pertinent questions to the fore. From the routinized, extra-judicial murder of people of color to the disruption of protest and the smashing up of labor strikes, the police are the state’s most visible domestic force of repression, superintending the system of mass incarceration commonly referred to as the New Jim Crow. ![]() Although police violence has always been pervasive in our society, today’s police forces are quantitatively larger, more intrusive, and more militarized. ![]()
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