The Horror of Police

The Horror of Police exposes the horrors of a social order reproduced and maintained by the violence of police, showing that police violence is not a deviation but rather a deliberate and permanent fixture of U.S. "law and order." Only when viewed through the refracted motif of horror stories can we begin to reckon the limits of police and imagine a world without them.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 27 September 2022
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

The crisis persists year after year, with graft and corruption, violence, and murder claiming city streets. Despite promises of reform, police operate with impunity, unaccountable to the law. In The Horror of Police, Travis Linnemann explores why policing remains the best, perhaps the only means of security, in an insecure world, despite an open record of violence and corruption.

Linnemann draws on the language and texts of horror fiction to recast the police as self-proclaimed "monster fighters" but as monsters themselves. He purposefully misreads a collection of everyday police stories, such as TV cop dramas, detective fiction, news media accounts, and the direct words of police, as horror rather than morality tales of innocence avenged and order restored. By viewing police violence through the refracted motif of horror stories, Linnemann argues, we can begin to reckon with the limits of police and imagine a world without them.

The Horror of Police reveals that police violence is not a deviation but rather a deliberate and permanent fixture of U.S. "law and order." It shows that police violence is not an isolated incident but rather a systematic and institutionalized practice. Only when we view police violence through the lens of horror stories can we begin to understand the extent of the harm it causes and work towards creating a world that is free from the fear and oppression of police brutality.

Dimension: 216 x 140 x 38 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517905910