Recommended Listening on Police Reform

Author of The Black and the Blue Matthew Horace spent 28 years working in policing, from an early stint as a beat cop to a position in federal law enforcement, working on some of the globe's most high-profile cases. Yet as a Black man in America, Horace was also no stranger to the realities of systemic racism—especially after being held at gunpoint by a white officer. In this listen, Horace recounts the profession's sometimes toxic culture, the pressures mounted on officers by department and city-wide demands, and lays bare a system rocked by pervasive bias. Blending interviews, personal accounts, research, and reporting, Horace effectively argues the need for change, sharing perspectives on how to ameliorate the pitfalls of the justice system as a whole.

One of the foremost solutions proposed in the wake of police violence and misconduct is also perhaps the most radical in scope. Abolition proposes the dissolution of modern policing, implementing alternatives including restorative justice, harm reduction, and legalization in its stead. In The End of Policing, sociologist Alex Vitale reflects on how reform methods including training and the diversification of forces will not be effective enough to combat the ills of policing at its core. Vitale explores the history of law enforcement as it exists today to bolster an argument for its elimination, covering its origins as method of control, the expansion of forces in vulnerable communities, and the violence that has emerged as a result.

Criminal law and procedure expert Angela J. Davis served as the editor of this necessary volume on how the criminal justice system directly targets and disrupts the lives of Black boys and men in the United States. With contributors including the Equal Justice Initiative's Bryan Stevenson and Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, this listen offers an expert perspective on both the historical context of racism's intersection with criminal justice and a contemporary look at the recurrent police killings of Black men. Policing the Black Man is an incisive contemplation of the failures of policing, from police brutality to the epidemic of mass incarceration.

Writer, lawyer, and activist Andrea Ritchie shines a light on the oft-overlooked demographics directly impacted by police violence. Ritchie centers the stories of Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color. In reexamining the deaths of Sandra Bland, Mya Hall, Rekia Boyd, and others, she assesses how the violence enacted against them is indicative of a larger crisis within policing, one that is rocked not only by racism, but by sex and gender bias. In documenting instances of police violence and reckoning with what it means to keep women of color safe from harm, this audiobook also encourages listeners to reconsider the commonly accepted concepts of American justice and peace.

Bolstered by massive budgets and a widespread us-versus-them mentality, many police forces in American cities have developed into heavily militarized groups, with the weaponry to match. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Radley Balko takes a look at this troubling trend in policing, tracking the roots of vague ideological "wars" (like that against drugs, crime, or terror) and the rise of a battlefield mentality, one that flouts the Fourth Amendment and further alienates law enforcement from the communities they are meant to serve. Now revised to reflect the biggest stories up to 2020, including disproportionate police response to protests following the murders of Michael Brown and George Floyd, this listen is an essential primer on the misuse of funds, policies, and force that have blurred the line between beat and battlefield.

Like The End of Policing, lawyer and activist Derecka Purnell's Becoming Abolitionists centers on the prospect of abolishing policing in its current form. Though Purnell was initially a skeptic about the concept of abolition, her research and ongoing activism work led her to the understanding that simple reform—which has failed time and again throughout history—was no longer a viable option. Instead, Purnell suggests, we should look toward building a society that eliminates or reduces harm from the start, in lieu of reactionary responses. Part memoir, part history, and part call-to-action, this vital look at the power of resistance, rebellion, and revolutionary love employed in the name of abolition is a worthy addition to any antiracist library.

The titular "nobody" of this audiobook from journalist Marc Lamont Hill is an abstract concept representative of the vulnerable communities considered at best, invisible, or at worst, disposable, under the specters of racism and classism. Hill's mixture of reporting and research unravel the story between why and how this class has emerged, and how, over centuries of American history, it has served as fodder for legislation fortifying aggressive policing tactics, economic insecurity, absence of public resources, mass incarceration, and more. This listen makes the argument for how our current system serves not to aid those most in need, but to prey on them—and what we can do to prevent further miscarriages of justice.

The very title of this audiobook poses a query that has been floated around for several years in the wake of police misconduct, aggression, and brutality: If those meant to serve and protect act with prejudice and employ excessive force, who is being kept safe? Composed of essays and reports, the accounts housed in this collection cover police violence as it pertains to marginalized communities, including Black men and women, people of color, and mentally ill and disabled individuals. Posing the safety provided to the white and wealthy against the threats faced by those who are not afforded the same security, this listen provides listeners with the history and impact of a long-fractured system, and a roadmap for how we can move forward—including a rousing discourse against calling the police.