Reason

The ‘Monstrous Beastliness’ of Urban Policing

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, IS “the edge case in American policing,” journalists Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham declare in The Riders Come Out at Night. “More has been done to try to reform the Oakland Police Department than any other police force in the United States.”

It’s a bold claim, given the crowded field competing for the title. In Baltimore during 2016, a vice squad was essentially operating a criminal enterprise, using the police department as a front. The corruption and violence exposed in the Rampart scandal, which unfolded in the late 1990s and early 2000s, landed the Los Angeles Police Department under federal oversight for 12 years. Chicago is Chicago. But in their deeply reported and comprehensive book, Winston and Bond-Graham make a persuasive case that Oakland’s entrenched police corruption best demonstrates “the

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Reason

Reason11 min read
The Real Threat Is An Isolated China
IN A BITTERLY polarized era, China bashing is still bipartisan. President Donald Trump opens with tariffs, the Democrats call and raise, and then it’s Trump’s turn to up the ante again. The People’s Republic is now almost universally seen both as an
Reason3 min readAmerican Government
Archives
February 2020 “By accident as much as design, our system makes it painfully difficult to remove a president. And the political culture makes it harder still, by erecting barriers nowhere to be found in the Constitution. We’ve come to view the process
Reason2 min read
Reason
Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward ([email protected]), Publisher Mike Alissi ([email protected]), Editors at Large Nick Gillespie ([email protected]), Matt Welch ([email protected]), Managing Editor Jason Russell ([email protected]), A

Related Books & Audiobooks