Police On A Pedestal

This book provides readers with insight into the intellectual, emotional, and social challenges experienced by law enforcement personnel while simultaneously challenging readers to understand the need to hold law enforcement responsible when they violate legal codes of conduct. Relationships between law enforcement and minority cultures in the United States have historically been filled with tension. These relationships continue to be strained due to multiple high-profile shootings of unarmed minorities by police officers. Outrage over these incidents has launched local and national demonstrations protesting police brutality and militarization of law enforcement. Such demonstrations have also renewed conversations about the inherent value of black and brown lives. One of the main questions facing our nation is "What needs to occur for there to be peace between minority cultures and law enforcement?" Exploring some of the historic reasons for the divisions between law enforcement and minority cultures, this book is informed by the author's experiences growing up as a black child in St. Louis, MO, where he ultimately served simultaneously as a pastor of an urban congregation and as an officer who patrolled two of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods. Writing from his experiences, the author illuminates the temptations officers regularly face when interacting with minority cultures. He also provides solutions that faith-based communities can adopt to help law enforcement to do their jobs in more equitable ways.

"Anarchy and Anarchists: A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe" by Michael J. Schaack is a comprehensive exploration of a tumultuous period in history. Schaack delves deep into the rise of anarchism, providing readers with a thorough understanding of the movement's origins, key figures, and its impact on society. This historical account offers valuable insights into the social and political dynamics of the time, shedding light on the motivations and ideologies of anarchists. Schaack's meticulous research and engaging narrative make this book an essential read for anyone interested in the history of radical movements.

The political memoir as rousing adventure story—a sizzling account of a life lived in the thick of every important struggle of the era. April 1973: snow falls thick and fast on the Badlands of South Dakota. It has been more than five weeks since protesting Sioux Indians seized their historic village of Wounded Knee, and the FBI shows no signs of abandoning its siege. When Bill Zimmerman is asked to coordinate an airlift of desperately needed food and medical supplies, he cannot refuse; flying through gunfire and a mechanical malfunction, he carries out a daring dawn raid and success­fully parachutes 1,500 pounds of food into the village. The drop breaks the FBI siege, and assures an Indian victory. This was not the first—or last—time Bill Zimmerman put his life at risk for the greater social good. In this extraordi­nary memoir, Zimmerman takes us into the hearts and minds of those making the social revolution of the sixties. He writes about registering black voters in deepest, most racist Mississippi; marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago; helping to organize the 1967 march on the Pentagon; fighting the police at the 1968 Democratic con­vention; mobilizing scientists against the Vietnam War and the military’s misuse of their discoveries; smuggling medi­cines to the front lines in North Vietnam; spending time in Hanoi under U.S. bombardment; and founding an interna­tional charity, Medical Aid for Indochina, to deliver humanitarian assistance. Zimmerman—who crossed paths with political organizers and activists like Abbie Hoffman, Daniel Ellsberg, César Chávez, Jane Fonda, and Tom Hayden—captures a groundbreaking zeitgeist that irrevoca­bly changed the world as we knew it.

Trust and confidence are topical issues. Pundits claim that citizens trust governments and public services increasingly less - identifying a powerful new erosion of confidence that, in the US, goes back at least to Watergate in the 1970s. Recently, media exposure in the UK about MP expenses has been extensive, and a court case ruled in favor of publishing expense claims and against exempting MPs from the scrutiny which all citizens are subject to under ‘freedom of information.’ As a result, revelations about everything from property speculation to bespoke duck pond houses have fueled public outcry, and survey evidence shows that citizens increasingly distrust the government with public resources. This book gathers together arguments and evidence to answers questions such as: What is trust? Can trust be boosted through regulation? What role does leadership play in rebuilding trust? How does trust and confidence affect public services? The chapters in this collection explore these questions across several countries and different sectors of public service provision: health, education, social services, the police, and the third sector. The contributions offer empirical evidence about how the issues of trust and confidence differ across countries and sectors, and develop ideas about how trust and confidence in government and public services may adjust in the information age.