Race and Policing in America

Ronald Weitzer is professor of sociology at George Washington University, where he has taught since 1988. His primary research interests are in criminology, with specialization in policing. He has published extensively on the issue of police-minority relations in the United States, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. A secondary area of expertise is the sex industry. His books include Current Controversies in Criminology (2003), Deviance and Social Control (2002), Sex For Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry (2000), Policing Under Fire: Ethnic Conflict and Police-Community Relations in Northern Ireland (1995), and Transforming Settler States: Communal Conflict and Internal Security in Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe (1990). Steven A. Tuch is professor of sociology at George Washington University, where he has taught since 1983. His primary research interests are in racial stratification and public opinion. He has published extensively on these topics in such journals as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Problems, Criminology, Social Psychology Quarterly, Sociological Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, and Social Science Research, among others. He is the coeditor of Racial Attitudes in the 1990s: Continuity and Change (1997). In 1997–98 he was a Fulbright Fellow in the Institute of Sociology at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

"This book touches on all the hot buttons of police-minority relations in America: unwarranted stops, verbal abuse, brutality and police corruption. Racial profiling is just one part of a larger story the authors frame as “racialized policing.” They explain how neighborhood conditions, citizens' experiences with cops and the media have helped create two societies, one safely confident in the powers and competence of the police and another that sees police as one of the problems they must confront, and not a solution to them. They report what people of all backgrounds want done to address the deep division over policing: On many issues Hispanics and African-Americans stand arm-in-arm in their commitment to change on a broad front, while the comfortable majority is reluctant to go beyond the rhetoric and embrace meaningful reform of the police. Drawing on national data that represent the nation's largest immigrant group, this is the best book yet on public opinion about the police." - Wesley G. Skogan, Northwestern University

• 1. Police-minority relations in America; 2. Police misconduct; 3. Racially biased policing; 4. Reforming the police; 5. Conclusion: the continuing racial divide.