Will Cooley

Metropolitan State University, History, Adjunct

Walsh University, History, Faculty Member

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Will Cooley is a historian of the twentieth century United States. He has published in the Journal of Urban History, the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Labor History, The Ages of Iron Man, The Oxford Handbook on Immigration and Ethnicity, Labor, the Journal of Social History, Policing, and Building the Black Metropolis. His book, Moving Up, Moving Out: The Rise of the Black Middle Class in Chicago was released by Northern Illinois University Press in 2018. His current project, “The People’s War: The American Addiction to Punitive Drug Policies,” is under review.

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Moving Up, Moving Out: The Rise of the Black Middle Class in Chicago

The Work: Dealing and Violence in the War on Drugs Era

Labor, 2018

Abstract:This essay demonstrates that drug prohibition has been a prime driver of violence as wor... more Abstract:This essay demonstrates that drug prohibition has been a prime driver of violence as workers in the informal economy engaged in rational market regulation. Most studies of the carceral state have been top-down assessments that have not considered the ripple effects of the lucrative, frenzied drug trade. Through an examination of the experiences of dealers, the essay shows how their search for rewarding work interacted with the contextual issues of poverty, racial segregation, deindustrialization, and government policy to account for a substantial amount of mayhem in the war on drugs era. The fervent enforcement of prohibition increased violence and incarceration as offenders acted in sensible ways to secure their livelihoods.

Moving Up, Moving Out

Jim Crow Organized Crime

Building the Black Metropolis

This chapter examines the historical evolution of Chicago’s African American underground economy.... more This chapter examines the historical evolution of Chicago’s African American underground economy. During the first decades of the twentieth-century games of chance associated with cards and dice were the primary source of gambling revenue in black Chicago. By the early 1930s, this facet of the underground economy had been surpassed by policy, also referred to as “the numbers game.” An important linkage between these two periods was that gambling proprietors funneled some of their profits back into the larger community. Later in the twentieth century, gang-controlled drug trafficking became the primary manifestation of black Chicago’s underground economy. Unlike the earlier period’s relatively violence-free focus on games of chance, the selling of illicit drugs by street gangs turned black Chicago into a battleground.

Neighborhood by neighborhood: community policing in a rust belt city

Policing: An International Journal, 2019

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine citizen satisfaction with police services and per... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine citizen satisfaction with police services and perceived safety using survey research in two high crime neighborhoods. Problem-oriented crime deterrence strategies were used in one neighborhood, the other served as a control group. Design/methodology/approach Mixed-methods approach was used to measure the effectiveness of problem-oriented approaches in persistent high-crime areas. Pre- and post-intervention surveys were conducted by sampling addresses in both neighborhoods and analyzing results. Findings No between-neighborhood differences were reported regarding the satisfaction with police services or improvement in perceived safety. Originality/value These findings suggest that this deterrence strategy is a promising approach to reducing crime while not damaging community perceptions. However, departments must vary place-based strategies, and prevention is difficult given historical contexts, the absence of credible community partner...

Will Cooley

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