NCJ Number
180459
Date Published
1998
Length
268 pages
Annotation
This book contains a historical overview of policing in the United States and Europe over the past century and a discussion of how, in order to protect and strengthen its position in the world system, the United States has used police assistance to establish intelligence and other social control infrastructures in foreign countries.
Abstract
The book claims that the U.S. encouraged centralization of Latin American internal security systems has led to the militarization of the police and, in turn, to an increase in state-sanctioned violence. Further, it shows how a domestic police force--when trained by another government--can lose its power over crime as it becomes a tool for the international interests of the nation that trains it. The book presents information on the theory and practice of policing international politics; “gunboat” and “good neighbor” policing; from policing espionage to suppressing “Communism” (World War II and its aftermath); policing containment; counterinsurgency policing; policing Brazil’s “Cleanup,” 1964-1968, and repression and the Brazilian police, 1968-1969; torture and death squads in authoritarian devolution, 1969-1970; devolution abroad and at home; and police assistance as a “Protection Racket.” Notes, references, appendixes, index