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T-shirts
Colors: Red, Green, Blue, Black, Orange and Maroon
Sizes: Adult S, M, L & XL
Available for $15.
Books
Beat the Heat: How to Handle Encounters with Law Enforcement
by Katya Komisaruk. AK Press. April 1, 2004.
Written by a criminal defense attorney, this illustrated street law manual teaches you exactly:
- What to say if you’re pulled over;
- How to read a search warrant;
- What you should know about undercover cops;
- How to handle police questioning;
- What to tell the judge to get your bail reduced; and
- How to get the best work out of your lawyer.
Reading this book is like getting a one-on-one coaching session with your lawyer. It’s written in plain English and comes with sample documents (including warrants and subpoenas), so you can learn how to deal with them before trouble’s at your door. There are special sections for minors and non-US citizens, as well as a chapter on suing the police.
Copies available for $15.
Our Enemies in Blue
by Kristian Williams. Soft Skull Press: 2004.
More than just a chronology of the history of police brutality in the United States,
Our Enemies in Blue is a scholarly work that studies the reality of sanctioned violence against certain segments of society and the ways in which police use brutality to preserve existing structures of inequality. The simplistic myth of police officer as hero is prevalent in our society, and often obscures the facts, and silences those who would question police actions. The author believes the American public deserves a well-researched counter argument that confronts the realities of policing in modern society. Our Enemies in Blue examines the strong-arming, racial profiling, and other objectionable tactics used by the police on an everyday basis and provides an intelligent, in-depth critique of police brutality in all its forms.
Copies are available for $10.
The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America: From Slave Passes to the War on Terror
by Christian Parenti. Basic Books: 2003.
Vivid and chilling, The Soft Cage explores the hidden history of surveillance—from controlling slaves in the old South to implementing early criminal justice, tracking immigrants, and closely monitoring the poor as part of modern social work. The relentless expansion of routine surveillance in American life over the last two centuries now finds us in a whole new world of seemingly benign technologies—credit cards, website cookies, electronic toll collection, data mining, and iris scanners at airports. From closed-circuit television cameras to the Department Of Homeland Security, the Soft Cage offers a compelling, vitally important history lesson for every American concerned about the expansion of surveillance into our public and private lives.
“The bad news is that a surveillance society of Orwellian menace is already here. The good news is that Christian Parenti has written a brilliant field guide to understanding and subverting it.” —Mike Davis
“Combining archival work, modern and postmodern political savvy, and a style of clarity and mounting alarm, Parenti hammers out a warning: the machinery of surveillance has grandiose and universal ambitions. The Soft Cage is a cautionary tale, a history, a handbook, and a hope.” —Peter Linebaugh
Copies are available for $10.
Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis
By Christian Parenti. Verso: 2000.
Why is criminal “justice” so central to American politics? Lockdown America not only documents the horrors and absurdities of militarized policing, prisons, a fortified border, and the federalization of the war on crime, it also explains the political and economic history behind the massive crackdown. If you are at all interested in why California spends more on prisons than on education, or that Starbucks, Jansport, and Microsoft all use prison labor to package their products, you’ll probably want to get this. If you don’t know the story of the SWAT teams now employed by mid-sized cities, this could be your survival manual.
Copies are available for $10.
Police Brutality: An Anthology
Edited by Jill Nelson. Norton: 2000.
A revelatory examination of one of America’s most serious domestic problems—a wholly unique work that investigates historical and sociological roots and grapples for solutions.
From the beating of Rodney King to the shooting by New York City police officers of the unarmed and innocent Amadou Diallo, incidents of police brutality have galvanized and polarized the nation in a way few other contemporary events have. Jill Nelson, author of the best-selling memoir Volunteer Slavery, was so disturbed by the Diallo killing—as well as the torture of Abner Louima and other acts of police violence—that she was moved to pioneer this extraordinary, landmark anthology. Police Brutality is a collection of thirteen original essays—by academics, historians, social critics, a Chicago congressman, and an ex–New York City police detective, among others—placing this centuries-old problem in much-needed historical and intellectual context, and underscoring the profound influence police brutality has had in shaping the American identity. Contributors include Robin D. G. Kelley, Ishmael Reed, Michael Ross, Katheryn Russell, Patricia Williams, Bobby Rush, Derrick Bell, Stanley Crouch, Ron Daniels, and Claude Clegg III.
“[N]ot only timely, but explores and exposes the sickness of this unbalanced, uncivilized Western pastime thoroughly.” —Chuck D of Public Enemy
Copies are available for $10.
Edge of the Knife: Police Violence in the Americas
by Paul Chevigny. New Press: 1997.
In Edge of the Knife, noted authority Paul Chevigny draws on years of field research to investigate torture and the use of deadly force, in addition to less drastic forms of violence, in New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Kingston. Chevigny, author of the classic Police Power, examines the sources of official violence and offers possibilities for controlling it. What emerges from his work is an image of police violence as a reflection of the larger order of a city, and a convincing argument for persistent action against police brutality.”An important contribution…Chevigny… has written a deeply depressing, yet very hopeful book. It is depressing in its careful documentation across diverse societies of what happens when, to paraphrase Yeats, ‘the state is the mob that howls at the door.’ It is hopeful in showing that variations in police abuse are associated with the policy choices a society makes.” -Gary T. Marx, author of Undercover: Police Surveillance in America.
Copies are available for $10.
Race Traitor
Edited by Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey. Routledge: 1996.
The journal Race Traitor began in 1992 with one lofty ambition: “to serve as an intellectual center for those seeking to abolish the white race.” The editors define the white race as a historically constructed social group consisting of all those who benefit from having white skin and are thus empowered by the status quo. They see the concept of whiteness as a barrier to justice and equality, insisting that deeply ingrained social problems cannot be solved until the privileges of white skin are abolished. Since they define the white race as a historical rather than a natural classification, it follows that this system can be undone–but only if a noticeable segment of whites are willing to dismiss conformity to their color. “Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity,” the editors declare. The enemies of social progress, then, are not just white supremacists but anyone unwilling to dismiss the benefits conferred by racial status. This anthology contains essays from the first five editions of Race Traitor, and its contributors are a varied lot: professors, poets, activists, skinheads, and prison inmates all toss their opinions into the racial ring. The essays range from sociological examinations of “whiteness” to examples of rampant racism and individuals’ attempts to stand up to it. Though the book’s introduction states that “Race Traitor exists not to make converts,” the arguments presented in this collection have the power and grace to do just that.
Copies are available for $12.
To order a book or t-shirt, email info@westernmasscopwatch.net or call (413) 559-8823.