Erin reviewed Our Enemies in Blue by Kristian Williams
Review of 'Our Enemies in Blue' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
The title is provocative, but the book itself is very scholarly and measured overall.
I read this book soon after Are Prisons Obsolete? which was a good pairing. Both books go further than calls to reform police and incarceration. They push you to consider whether we need these systems at all. They remind you that we didn’t always have them in the past, at some point we created them, and we don’t need to keep them just because we’ve had them for decades/centuries. They are not necessarily the best solutions to the problems they are attempting to solve. That’s an important thought process to have.
Another good point made in this book is that police and media often assume that a disruptive protest or a riot is an unwarranted reaction to something. That those are never legitimate actions. But if a group is oppressed and denied justice or aid via …
The title is provocative, but the book itself is very scholarly and measured overall.
I read this book soon after Are Prisons Obsolete? which was a good pairing. Both books go further than calls to reform police and incarceration. They push you to consider whether we need these systems at all. They remind you that we didn’t always have them in the past, at some point we created them, and we don’t need to keep them just because we’ve had them for decades/centuries. They are not necessarily the best solutions to the problems they are attempting to solve. That’s an important thought process to have.
Another good point made in this book is that police and media often assume that a disruptive protest or a riot is an unwarranted reaction to something. That those are never legitimate actions. But if a group is oppressed and denied justice or aid via legitimate means, what exactly is that group supposed to do? Sit there and take it? Or are we saying they are exaggerating their woes and it’s not bad enough to warrant protests and/or riots? How do we know it’s not?
This book was dense. It was more history than I expected. More than I wanted tbh.
