Home › Books › Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City
Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City
by
71/99
Critics' Rating Index
60/99
Readers' Rating Index
84/99
Scholars' Citation Index
89/99
Volume of Reviews
65/99
Volume of Reader Ratings
Sign in to add to your shelf, rate, or review this book.
About This Book
Journalist and law professor Rosa Brooks goes beyond the blue wall of silence in this radical inside examination of American policing In her forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor at Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks decided to become a cop. A liberal academic and journalist with an enduring interest in law's troubled relationship with violence, Brooks wanted the kind of insider experience that would help her understand how police officers make sense of their world--and whether that world can be changed. In 2015, against the advice of everyone she knew, she applied to become a sworn, armed reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department. Then as now, police violence was constantly in the news. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum, protests wracked America's cities, and each day brought more stories of cruel, corrupt cops, police violence, and the racial disparities that mar our criminal justice system. Lines were being drawn, and people were taking sides. But as Brooks made her way through the police academy and began work as a patrol officer in the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the nation's capital, she found a reality far more complex than the headlines suggested. In Tangled Up in Blue, Brooks recounts her experiences inside the usually closed world of policing. From street shootings and domestic violence calls to the behind-the-scenes police work during Donald Trump's 2016 presidential inauguration, Brooks presents a revelatory account of what it's like inside the blue wall of silence. She issues an urgent call for new laws and institutions, and argues that in a nation increasingly divided by race, class, ethnicity, geography, and ideology, a truly transformative approach to policing requires us to move beyond sound bites, slogans, and stereotypes. An explosive and groundbreaking investigation, Tangled Up in Blue complicates matters rather than simplifies them, and gives pause both to those who think police can do no wrong--and those who think they can do no right.
Reviews
"She writes with the ease of a novelist rather than the characteristic precision of a legal scholar."
"Through evocative storytelling coupled with research and analysis, she explores what on-the-ground policing in a low-income neighborhood looked like for her ..."
"It's easy to imagine the criticism she'll get, but her calm, considered tone, grounded in experience, is itself an achievement."
"This immersive, illuminating, and timely account takes a meaningful step toward bridging the gap between what American society asks of police and what they're trained to deliver."
"Brooks is careful to underline that crime remains a painful, frightening burden to the people who live where it is prevalent."
"Her sorrow, empathy, and frustration are evident as she describes routine police calls where she and her partners tried to mediate family disputes, serving not only as law enforcers but also as default social workers ..."
"Some of the officers she portrays are noble civil servants, others dead weight, others just this side of psychotic—very much like the people they both serve and combat."
"Provocative, intelligent, and useful, Tangled Up in Blue will help many readers understand the nuances shaping the present crisis in American policing."
"Throughout, she is unsparing in her descriptions of how cops are trained, how they relate to one another, and what the job entails ..."
Preview
Reader Reviews
0 reviewsSign in to write a review.
No reader reviews yet. Be the first!