This handbook offers a comprehensive historical overview and analysis of police brutality in US history and the variety of ways it has manifested itself.
Police brutality has been a defining controversy of the modern age, brought into focus most readily by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the mass protests that occurred as a result in 2020. However, the problem of police brutality has been consistent throughout American history. This volume traces its history back to Antebellum slavery, through the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the two world wars and the twentieth century, to the present day. This handbook is designed to create a generally holistic picture of the phenomenon of police brutality in the United States in all of its major lived forms and confronts a wide range of topics including:
- Race
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Police reactions to protest movements (particularly as they relate to the counterculture and opposition to the Vietnam War)
- Legal and legislative outgrowths against police brutality
- The representations of police brutality in popular culture forms like film and music
- The role of technology in publicizing such abuses, and the protest movements mounted against it
The Routledge History of Police Brutality in America will provide a vital reference work for students and scholars of American history, African American history, criminal justice, sociology, anthropology, and Africana studies.