Archive of Policing the Planet

Our top 20 books on activism and anti-capitalist resistance, the perfect introduction to left politics.

Challenge your imposed reading. 40% off until the end of September.

Our selected reading on Race for the academic year ahead: all 40% off until the end of September.

Policing is many things and all of them are about mobility. Police arrest mobility through traffic stops and checkpoints, interrupt mobility with borders and curfews, monitor mobility by helicopter or camera, force mobility by firing tear gas or sending in police dogs.

A report on the history and present day reality of police violence in India.

Key titles on activism and global resistance, from movements for Black liberation and climate justice to labor organizing and anti-colonial struggles.

'From colonialism to apartheid and through to contemporary South Africa, it is the threat presented by the masses which means they need to be permanently contained, and this remains the enduring imperative of policing practices.' 

Police brutality is endemic in modern Kenya, and a legacy of British colonial rule, write community organisers Gacheke Gachihi and Esther Waigumo Njoki. 

'The question of public security, policing and racism can no longer be separated from the overall question of Brazilian democracy itself – if it ever could.' Alex Hochuli reports on the lethal police tactics flourishing under the Bolsonaro regime. 

This week on the Verso Blog, we bring you reports on the past and present roles of the police in five different countries.