Police and State Crime in the Americas

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 to ethnic and area studies programs, such as Chicano/Latino and Latin American Studies, and to police administrators and policymakers.