Overview

In Edge of the Knife, noted authority Paul Chevigny draws on years of field research to investigate torture and the use of deadly force, in addition to less drastic forms of violence, in New York, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Kingston. Chevigny, author of the classic Police Power, examines the sources of official violence and offers possibilities for controlling it. What emerges from his work is an image of police violence as a reflection of the larger order of a city, and a convincing argument for persistent government action against crime-including accountability for police violence.

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9781565841840

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Reviews

Timely. . . . For those who struggle for a more equitable world, Chevigny's careful study provides a . . . framework for action. --Washington City Paper A groundbreaking work. --Boston Book Review A welcome antidote to more conventional narratives deploying the good cop/bad cop dichotomy. --Village Voice

New York University law professor Chevigny looks for instructive patterns in the behavior of police forces in New York City, Los Angeles, Silo Paulo, Buenos Aires, Kingston, Jamaica, and Mexico City. The question that interests Chevigny (Police Power, 1969; Cops and Rebels, 1972), who has written extensively about police abuse for human rights organizations, is why some police forces are more prone to violence than others. He believes such an understanding is key to police reform. His conclusion in this thoroughly researched study is that police work reproduces and represents the larger social order, and . . . tolerance of violence reflects the relation between the government and its citizens. Thus, Los Angeles has a worse record than New York in part because a strong streak of western vigilantism . . . was absorbed into police conduct. One reason more than a thousand people are killed by the police in Silo Pauio each year is that Brazilian society divides the citizenry into the wild and the cultivated. Its police force, organized along paramilitary lines, is prone to use violence against a well-defined enemy, which in this case becomes the lower classes. Reform is coming slowly to cities like Silo Paulo as authorities realize that, as a form of lawlessness itself, such violence fails to give ballast to the state's authority. Further, people are learning that there is no correlation between police violence and a reduction in crime. On the other hand, there is a threat of increased police violence in America as rising economic pressures and the fear of crime . . . create a constant temptation to arbitrary violence as a supposed shortcut to order. Chevigny's book is dull going for the average reader but should be of intense interest to students of police power and practitioners of reform. (Kirkus Reviews)

Timely. . . . For those who struggle for a more equitable world, Chevigny's careful study provides a . . . framework for action. -- Washington City Paper A groundbreaking work. -- Boston Book Review A welcome antidote to more conventional narratives deploying the good cop/bad cop dichotomy. -- Village Voice

Timely. . . . For those who struggle for a more equitable world, Chevigny's careful study provides a . . . framework for action. <i>Washington City Paper</i> A groundbreaking work. <i>Boston Book Review</i> A welcome antidote to more conventional narratives deploying the good cop/bad cop dichotomy. <i>Village Voice</i>

Timely. . . . For those who struggle for a more equitable world, Chevigny's careful study provides a . . . framework for action. --<i>Washington City Paper</i> A groundbreaking work. --<i>Boston Book Review</i> A welcome antidote to more conventional narratives deploying the good cop/bad cop dichotomy. --<i>Village Voice</i>

Author Information

Paul Chevigny teaches at New York University Law School and is the author of several books on police abuse, including Police Power (1965) and Cops and Rebels (1972). He has also worked on numerous reports for Americas Watch and other human rights organizations.

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