Police and State Crime in the Americas Southern and Postcolonial Perspectives

This book advances a much-needed “postcolonial” framework in analyzing the police. It seeks to deepen our understanding of the police role in maintaining Western global domination throughout the American region despite the violent end of colonial rule. Building on Chevigny's (1995) classic study, this book seeks to draw renewed attention to the role of police in perpetrating state violence and serving as the tip of the spear of state power. It seeks to understand the construction of marginality and the multiple and intersecting structures of colonial domination, before shining a light directly on the crimes of the state, in an attempt to hold criminal state organizations to account. It draws on interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies that center marginalized and colonized experiences and allows for the development of countercolonial knowledge. It speaks to academics and students in criminology, sociology, political science, and law, as well as toethnic and area studies programs, such as Chicano/Latino and Latin American Studies, and to police administrators and policymakers. 

Imperial Regimes.- Chapter 1: Uruguayan Police in the Age of Conservative Hegemony by Rafael Paternain.- Chapter 2: Securing Citizens, Pacifying Subjects and Criminalizing “Others”: The Dark Side of Community Policing in Latin America by Markus-Michael Müller.- Chapter 3: Tribal Law and Order and the Settler-Colonial Logics of Reservation Policing by Theresa Rocha Beardall.-  Colonial Organizations.- Chapter 4: Policing Immigrant Communities: An Assessment of State Sanctioned Violence in the Name of Migration Control by Mercedes Valadez and Jennifer Noble.- Chapter 5: Techniques and Technologies: The Military Expansion of São Paulo’s Municipal Civil Guard by José Douglas dos Santos Silva.- Chapter 6: Policing in Puerto Rico: Reforms of the Twenty First Century, by Xavier Perez and Jhon Sanabria.- Repressive Encounters.- Chapter 7: Nos Quedamos Marcados: The Carceral Regime’s Ripple Effect on Mexican Families by Marlene Mercado.-  Chapter 8: How Black Genocide Happens: Military Patronage, Policing, and the Coloniality of Gender in Rio de Janeiro Favelas by Carla dos Santos Mattos.-  Chapter 9: The Criminology of State Violence will include interviews with critical theorists, Biko Agozino and Guillermina Seri.- Chapter 10: Counter-Colonial Methods includes interviews with critical methodologists, Robert Duran and Nicolas Barrera.- Chapter 11: Between Accountability and Alternatives is an interview with police reformers, Jhon Sanabria and Bernardo Gill.

Daniel Gascón is Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts Boston, USA.

Sebastian Sclofsky is Assistant Professor at California State University, Stanislaus, USA. 

Analicia Mejia Mesinas is Assistant Professor at Azusa Pacific University, USA. 

Xavier Perez is Co-Founder of the Criminology Department at DePaul University, USA.

Jhon Sanabria is Executive Director Institute of Public Safety at Universidad Ana G. Méndez (UAGM), Puerto Rico,