Violence work : state power and the limits of police

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Violence work : state power and the limits of police

Micol Seigel

Duke University Press, 2018

  • : pbk

Available at  / 2 libraries

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Bibliography: p. [249]-292

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In Violence Work Micol Seigel offers a new theorization of the quintessential incarnation of state power: the police. Foregrounding the interdependence of policing, the state, and global capital, Seigel redefines policing as "violence work," showing how it is shaped by its role of channeling state violence. She traces this dynamic by examining the formation, demise, and aftermath of the U.S. State Department's Office of Public Safety (OPS), which between 1962 and 1974 specialized in training police forces internationally. Officially a civilian agency, the OPS grew and operated in military and counterinsurgency realms in ways that transgressed the borders that are meant to contain the police within civilian, public, and local spheres. Tracing the career paths of OPS agents after their agency closed, Seigel shows how police practices writ large are rooted in violence-especially against people of color, the poor, and working people-and how understanding police as a civilian, public, and local institution legitimizes state violence while preserving the myth of state benevolence.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction. Policing and State Power 1 1. The Office of Public Safety, the LEAA, and US Police 25 2. Civilian or Military? Distinction by Design 52 3. "Industrial Security" in Alaska: The Great Public-Private Divide 73 4. Corporate States and Government Markets for Saudi Arabian Oil 99 5. Professors for Police: The Growth of Criminal Justice Education 121 6. Exiles at Home: A Refugee Structure of Feeling 146 Conclusion. Reckoning with Police Lethality 179 Appendix 189 Abbreviations 191 Notes 193 Bibliography 249 Index 293

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