An in-depth critical
analysis of how ruling elites use the police institution in order to
control communities
Police
are popularly understood as the “thin blue line” that “serves
and protects” us from violence and crime in the pursuit of justice.
In
Policing a Class Society, Sidney L. Harring provides an
essential corrective to the ideas that police have always been
around, that they are a force for deterring crime, or that theyhave
an interest in the pursuit of justice.
Looking
at the growth of the urban police force around the turn of the 20th
century, Harring argues that the police protected the interestsof
manufacturers, working almost as hired guns. Rather than fighting
crime, the historical role of police was to control the leisure
activity of the devloping working-class and maintainthe existing
order of capitalist relationships.
