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9781516532353

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Keeping our police answerable to the public they are sworn to serve has been a perpetual struggle from their inception in early 19th century Boston, with periodic waves of reform and regression. But the challenge is especially daunting in today's political and cultural climate in which officials at the highest levels of our federal government tolerate and even encourage police misconduct while promoting police militarization. In his masterful analysis of police accountability, Dr. Douglas W. Perez offers college students, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers a critical examination of the many vexing obstacles to achieving effective accountability. His lucid and lively sociological analysis focuses on the numerous paradoxes and ironies experienced by patrol officers that frustrate accountability. Although there are many tensions between legitimacy and effectiveness that arise from these paradoxes, Dr. Perez forcefully argues that effective policing in a democracy is legitimate policing and can be fostered in large part by higher educational requirements that emphasize the core principles of Western liberalism, including individual rights, limited governmental powers, due process, and public accountability. Police Accountability is a tour de force. Robert P. Weiss, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Criminal Justice, State University of New York at Plattsburgh

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Douglas W. Perez is a professor emeritus in the Criminal Justice Department at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, where he taught courses in criminal justice, focusing on the police, law and society, the drug war, and introductory courses. Previously, he served as a deputy sheriff and correctional officer at the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office in California. Dr. Perez is the author of The Paradoxes of Policy Work, Common Sense about Police Review, and Police Ethics: A Matter of Character.

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