Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life before Stonewall

In the mid-twentieth century, American cities experienced a flourishing of gay life despite state repression. Liquor investigators, plainclothes decoys, and vice officers used tactics to criminalize, profile, and suppress gay life. Anna Lvovsky's book, Vice Patrol, chronicles these tactics and the controversies they inspired in court, highlighting the debates about the laws treatment of queer people, ethical policing, expert authority, and sexual difference.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 360 pages
\n Publication date: 24 May 2021
\n Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
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In the mid-twentieth century, gay life flourished in American cities, despite the state repression of queer communities reaching its peak. Liquor investigators infiltrated and shut down gay-friendly bars. Plainclothes decoys enticed men in parks and clubs. Vice officers surveilled public bathrooms through peepholes and two-way mirrors.

In Vice Patrol, Anna Lvovsky chronicles this painful story, tracing the tactics used to criminalize, profile, and suppress gay life from the 1930s through the 1960s. Lvovsky shows that the vice squads campaigns stood at the center of live debates about not only the laws treatment of queer people but also the limits of ethical policing, the authority of experts, and the nature of sexual difference itself. These debates had often unexpected effects on the gay communitys rights and freedoms.

Examining these battles, Vice Patrol enriches our understanding of the regulation of queer life in the twentieth century and disputes about police power that continue today.

\n Weight: 634g\n
Dimension: 206 x 550 x 25 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780226769646\n \n