Adapted from the landmark essay Enforcing
Order, this striking graphic novel offers an accessible
inside look at policing and how it leads to discrimination and
violence.
What we know about the forces of law
and order often comes from tragic episodes that make the headlines,
or from sensationalized versions for film and television. These
gripping accounts obscure two crucial aspects of police work: the
tedium of everyday patrols under constant pressure to meet quotas,
and the banality of racial discrimination and ordinary violence.
Around the time of the 2005 French
riots, anthropologist and sociologist Didier Fassin spent fifteen
months observing up close the daily life of an anticrime squad in one
of the largest precincts in the Paris region. His unprecedented
study, which sparked intense discussion about policing in the largely
working-class, immigrant suburbs, remains acutely relevant in light
of all-too-common incidents of police brutality against minorities.
This new, powerfully illustrated
adaptation clearly presents the insights of Fassin's investigation,
and draws connections to the challenges we face today in the United
States as in France.