Overview

Amid renewed anti-racist resistance to violent policing, The racial politics of police warfare unpacks the racisms that rationalise militarised policing in contemporary Britain. Jasbinder S. Nijjar shatters prevailing myths about British police as an impartial public service, by revealing it as an institution where racism and war reinforce one another. In examining flagship anti-gang and counter-terrorism policies and practices, the book offers a unique analysis of the relationship between anti-black and anti-Muslim racisms, to demonstrate how racialised populations are institutionalised as common enemies of modernity. Combining perspectives from sociology, history, criminology and social policy, Nijjar illustrates how British policing defends law and order and national security from the perceived threat of race through hyper-intrusive, pre-emptive and deathly measures. Accordingly, he gives a fresh take on resisting racial police warfare, calling for strategies that are at once political, collective, anti-militaristic and abolitionist.

Full Product Details

9781526174420

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Nijjar presents a forensic critique of policing through the interlocking lenses of institutional racism, militarisation, war and state control. Unflinching in its analysis, the book traces the complicated historical roots and evolving contours of British policing, revealing it as a biopolitical system engineered to enforce a racialised and militarised social order. For Nijjar, policing is a biopolitical system that curates and rationalises the targeted regulation and dehumanisation of racial subjects. The book’s dual emphasis on the militarisation of race and the racialisation of war makes an urgent contribution to how we understand a core, violent aspect of racialised control – ‘the racial politics of police warfare’ – and its systematic embeddedness within policing frameworks, ideologically built and endorsed by the state. The depressing applicability of Nijjar’s analysis to multiple global contexts underscores its relevance and potential impact. The significance for anti-racist forms of resistance is clear; we need to practically challenge and transform policing’s everyday ways of normalising war power and our increasingly unjust social order. This is a must-read for anyone seeking to confront the violent realities of state racism and imagine anti-racist and humane alternatives.' – Sarita Malik, Brunel University of London -- .

Author Information

Jasbinder S. Nijjar is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Social and Political Sciences Department at Brunel University of London.

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