Rise of the Warrior Cop, Radley Balko
Rise of the Warrior Cop, Radley Balko
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Rise of the Warrior Cop
The Militarization of America's Police Forces

Author: Radley Balko

Narrator: Greg Baglia

Unabridged: 17 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 06/01/2021

Synopsis

“A fascinating and at times wrenching” (New Yorker) history of how police forces have become militarized, both in equipment and mindset, and what that means for American democracy   The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But over the last two centuries, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as enemies.

In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative that spans from America’s earliest days through today shows how a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

About Radley Balko

Radley Balko reports on criminal justice, the drug war, and civil liberties for the Washington Post. He was previously a writer and investigative reporter at the Huffington Post and a reporter and editor for Reason magazine. He is an author and co-author of two acclaimed nonfiction books. His work has been cited twice by the US Supreme Court and by the Mississippi Supreme Court and two federal appeals courts. He has won the Los Angeles Press Club’s Journalist of the Year award, the NACDL’s Champion of Justice Award, the Innocence Project’s Journalism Award, and the Bastiat Prize for Journalism.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrea on October 26, 2014

I don't usually review nonfiction books, particularly ones about topics on which I consider myself such a novice, but the pure dismay and frustration this book has inspired in me has forced me to change my policy, to advocate for this book as required reading for anyone who cares about the country w......more

Goodreads review by Jordan on November 24, 2014

Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop pulls a bit of a bait and switch. The book begins with a good summary of the origins of "Castle Doctrine" and the Constitution's Fourth Amendment; the former argues that, legally, a man's home is his castle, and entering it without permission amounts to an act......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie on March 21, 2019

First off, you have to ignore the blatantly false statement made at the very beginning where he makes the absurd claim that during colonial times "predatory crimes like murder, rape, and robbery were almost non-existent." But I'm no historian so what do I know. Unless your an American who has been a......more

Goodreads review by Brendan on April 07, 2018

I've been binging on a buffet of depressing non-fiction books lately, detailing the way in which the world, and America in particular, is terribly screwed up. It's the anti anti-depressant and the inspiration for my new Goodreads tag, "Death, Drugs, and Political Corruption". But the thing about soc......more

Goodreads review by Ray on October 16, 2014

I just finished "Rise of the Warrior Cops", and was about to add my comments here when I came across an article written today (October 24th) by Radley Balko for the Huffington Post. The article, the first of a six part series, capatures the essence of the book, e.g., too many drug raids gone wrong b......more

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