Shielded

How the Police Became Untouchable

By: Joanna Schwartz

Narrated by: Joanna Schwartz

An urgent and definitive examination of how the legal system prevents accountability for police misconduct, from one of the country's leading scholars on policing

In recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have brought much-needed attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct. Yet it remains nearly impossible to hold police accountable for abuses of power—the decisions of the Supreme Court, state and local governments, and policy makers have, over decades, made the police all but untouchable.

In Shielded, University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Joanna Schwartz exposes the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs, with insightful analyses about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants. The product of more than two decades of advocacy and research, Shielded is a timely and necessary investigation into why civil rights litigation so rarely leads to justice or prevents future police misconduct. Weaving powerful true stories of people seeking restitution for violated rights, cutting across race, gender, criminal history, tax bracket, and zip code, Schwartz paints a compelling picture of the human cost of our failing criminal justice system, bringing clarity to a problem that is widely known but little understood. Shielded is a masterful work of immediate and enduring consequence, revealing what tragically familiar calls for “justice” truly entail.


© 2023 Robert Longo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

buy this book!

excellent and informative book about how American cops get away with everything they do to us. ACAB.

Extremely important

This book was the perfect mix of educational and storytelling with real life anecdotes from folks who experienced brutality at the hands of the police and had to navigate a system stacked against them.

The amount of time and research that clearly went into this book is beyond impressive. This author is clearly an expert on this topic and every law student should read this book.

Even if you are not a law student, the author managed to make this book approachable and digestible for all audiences.

Highly recommend this book. I listened to it as an audio book and the author narrates it, which I love.

Best nonfiction book I’ve read in a good while

Laser focused analysis, compelling stories, deep research, and an excellent performance from the author herself. Top notch.

Riveting! Explains our epidemic of police violence

This amazing book traces the history of American legal, social and political forces that have created the conditions protecting political brutality. The author (who narrates the book like the best of professional narrators) makes complex legal concepts and history clear and interesting to non-lawyers and lawyers alike. She shows how these forces impact innocent people going about their lives when cops brutalize them and the people they love. Required reading for anyone hoping to understand how we got here and how things can change for the better.

A compelling and eye-opening view into the injustices of our country.

I really enjoyed this title. The author is a great narrator as well. I feel like it was beneficial and eye opening for a person who has actually worked in public safety, and has not always been cognizant of the way things potentially could be perceived, or could be handled differently.