SOCY 85000 Reimagining Policing and Public Safety

CUNY Graduate Center

Spring 2023
Alex S. Vitale

This course will examine the origins and historical function of police and explore competing
discourses and practices concerning the direction of policing and the production of public safety
including “reform,” “defund,” “back the blue,” and “abolition.” We will incorporate sociology,
criminology, and urban studies literatures to help explain the interaction between neoliberal
austerity and the use of police to manage a growing number of social problems such as
homelessness, sex work, youth violence, untreated mental health conditions, and harmful
substance use, with special attention given to violence reduction efforts. 

Course Requirements

Class presentations
Each student will take responsibility for providing a brief introduction to one primary reading and
two supplemental readings over the course of the semester. Auditing students are expected to
present 2 supplementary readings over the course of the semester. This will be worked out on
the first day of class. 20%

Class participation
Students (registered and auditing) are expected to be consistently prepared to discuss the
primary readings each class, including critical assessments of the readings and their connection
to previous readings. 20%

Short essay
Each student will write one short op-ed style essay of 600-1,500 words on a breaking news
event related to policing and public safety. This will be due during the second half of the
semester. 25%

Final paper
The final paper will be a 10-20 page research paper on a topic related to policing and public
safety. Topics to be approved by the instructor. 35%
 Course Schedule

Peelian Principles

1/31 
Bittner, Egon. 1970. The Functions of the Police in Modern Society. National Institute of Mental 
Health. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112065198910&view=1up&seq=3.

Supplementary
Loder, Ian. 2016. “In Search of Civic Policing: Recasting the ‘Peelian’ Principles | SpringerLink” 
Criminal Law and Philosophy. 10.

Policing by the Numbers

2/7

McGuire, James et al. 2021. Evidence-Based Policing and Community Crime Prevention. 
Springer. Chapters 1, 5-8, 12.
https://link-springer-com.brooklyn.ezproxy.cuny.edu/book/10.1007/978-3-030-76363-3

Supplementary
Sparrow, Malcolm. 2016. Handcuffed: What Holds Policing Back, and the Keys to Reform. 
Brookings Institute.
Brown, Jennifer, et al. 2018. Extending the remit of evidence-based policing International 
Journal of Police Science and Management. 20:1.
Stagoff, Aaron et al. 2022. The Social Costs of Policing | Vera Institute.

Police Reform

2/14
President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. 2015. Final Report of the President’s Task 
Force on 21st Century Policing. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented
Policing 
Services. 

Supplementary
Vitale, Alex S. 2021. “Failure of Police Reform.” The End of Policing. Verso. 
Thacher, David. 2019. Critic: The Limits of Procedural Justice. In: Weisburd D, Braga AA (eds) 
Police Innovation. Contrasting Perspectives, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 95–118.

2/28

Horace, Matthew, 2018. The Black and The Blue. Hachet.

Supplementary
Blow, Charles. 2016. Opinion | Police Violence: American Epidemic, American Consent - The 
New York Times.
Cobbina, Jennifer and Alex S. Vitale. 2021. Why Police Diversity Won’t Fix the Problems of
Policing - The Crime Report. January 18. 
The War on Cops

3/7
Mac Donald, Heather. 2016.  The War on Cops: How the Attack on Law and Order Makes 
Everyone Less Safe. Encounter Books.

Supplementary

Mangual, Rafael. 2022.  Criminal Injustice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing 
Gets Wrong and Who it Hurts Most. Center Street. 
Video: Debate between Heather McDonald and Alex Vitale 2017. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzAwEgv9Ta0
Debate between Rafael Mangual and Alex Vitale 2022. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZuCtPlpHSg

It’s all about the Violence

3/14
Abt, Thomas. 2019. Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence--and a 
Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets. Basic Books.

Supplementary

Karakatsanis, Alec. 2020. Why “Crime” Isn’t the Question and Police Aren’t the Answer ❧ 
Current Affairs. August 10. 
Yglesia, Matt. 2020. The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, reviewed and critiqued - Vox. June 18.
Siegel, Micol, 2018. Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police. Duke. Introduction. 

3/21
Currie, Elliott. 2020. A Peculiar Indifference: The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America.
Metropolitan Books.

Supplementary
Sharkey, Patrick, Gerard Torrats-Espinosa, and Delaram Takyar. 2017. “Community and the 
Crime Decline: The Causal Effect of Local Nonprofits on Violent Crime.” American 
Sociological Review. 82:6. 1214-1240.
Vitale, Alex S. 2021. “Afterward” The End of Policing. Verso.

Critical Police Studies

3/28
Gascon, Daniel and Aaron Roussell. 2019.  The Limits of Community Policing: Civilian Power 
and Police Accountability in Black and Brown Los Angeles. New York: NYU Press. 

Supplementary
Moskos, Peter. 2009. Cop in the Hood. Princeton University Press. 
Herbert, Steve. 2006. Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community 
 Policing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
Video: Interview with Gascon and Roussell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFkagOIZ23k
Peter Moskos and Alex Vitale Debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTH8sRhiOo

4/4
Lebron, Marisol. 2019. Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico.
NYU Press. 

Supplementary
Harrington, Sidney. 2017. Policing a class society: the experience of American cities, 1865-
1915. Haymarket.
Video: Interview with Marisol LeBron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1VVZCoczI4&t=724s

Police Pessimism

4/18
Linneman, Travis. 2022. The Horror of Police. Minnesota.

Supplementary
Wall, Tyler. 2014 “Legal terror and the police dog.” Radical Philosophy 188, Nov/Dec. Tyler
Wall · Legal terror and the police dog (2014).

Carceral Feminism

4/25
Fischer, Anne Gray. 2022. The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from
Segregation to Gentrification. UNC Press. 

Supplementary
Richie, Beth. 2012. Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation.
NYU Press. 
Davis, Angela, Gina Dent, Erica Meiners and Beth Richie. 2022. Abolition. Feminism. Now.
Haymarket. 
Goodmark, Leigh. 2018. Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to
Intimate Partner Violence. University of California Press. 
Video: Interview with Leigh Goodmark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VopnJtIBEX0&t=44s

Police Abolition

5/2
Neocleous, Mark. 2000, 2021. A Critical Theory of Police Power. Verso. 

Supplementary
Vitale, Alex S. 2021. The End of Policing. Verso. Preface and Chapter 2.
Maher, Geo. 2022. A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete.
Verso.

5/9
Kaba, Mariame and Andrea Ritchie. 2022. No More Police. The New Press. 
Supplementary
Kaba, Mariame. 2021. We Do This Till We Free Us; Abolitionist Organizing and Transformative
Justice. Haymarket
Purnell, Derecka. 2021. Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and The Pursuit of Freedom.
Astra House.
Audio: Derecka Purnell on Abolition and the Pursuit of Freedom ‹ Literary Hub

Global Policing

5/16
Schrader, Stuart. 2019. Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed
American Policing. University of California Press. 

Supplementary
Garcia, Sergio Garcia, Ignacio Mendiola, Debora Avila, Laurant Bonelli, Jose Angel Brandariz,
Cristina Fernandez Bessa, and Manuel Maroto Calatayud. 2021. Metropolis: Seguridad
y Policia en la Ciudad Neoliberal. 
Fassin, Didier. 2022. Policing the City: An Ethno-Graphic. Other Press.
Video: Interview with Stuart Schrader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg81-VS9owQ&t=74s