Democracy and the Police [Paperback]

Everyone is for democratic policing ; everyone is against a police state. But what do those terms mean, and what should they mean? The first half of this book traces the connections between the changing conceptions of American democracy over the past half-century and the roughly contemporaneous shifts in ideas about the policelinking, on the one hand, the downfall of democratic pluralism and the growing popularity of participatory and deliberative democracy with, on the other hand, the shift away from the post-war model of professional law enforcement and the movement toward a new orthodoxy of community policing. The second half of the book explores how a richer set of ideas about policing might change our thinking about a range of problems and controversies associated with the police, ranging from racial profiling and the proliferation of private security, to affirmative action and the internal governance of law enforcement agencies. Drawing on a rich background of democratic theory and criminal justice research, Sklansky skillfully probes the connections between democratic practices like popular participation and the police's charge to maintain societal order. In a post-9/11 US, these linkages have become even more salient, making this thought-provoking analysis particularly relevant. This book discusses the relationship between democracy and policing, and, more specifically, what it means for law enforcement to be democratic in modern-day America.David Alan Sklansky is Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and Faculty Co-Director of the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice. The proper balance between freedom and security is an enduring struggle for any democracy. In this timely new book, Professor David Sklansky adds an original and insightful dimension to this continuing conversation. By embracing the nuanced questions his subject raises, Professor Sklansky aids politicians and scholars alike in their ongoing endeavor to make the poló2