This weekend I had the pleasure of attending Students For Liberty’s New Orleans Regional Conference. It was a delightful event, featuring a talk by C4SS’s own Roderick Long along with many other radical, principled, and insightful speakers. One of the most interesting presentations was by Maggie McNeill, a retired sex worker who blogs at The…

Federal officials are warning “U.S. law enforcement about the threat of Islamic State-inspired terror attacks against police officers, government workers and ‘media figures’ in the U.S.” Unfortunately many Americans will buy into the state propaganda, spurring even more authoritarian increases in police and military power. But what reasons are there to think that Islamic terrorists are…

It’s well known that the United States has the largest prison population on Earth. It’s less obvious why this is the case. To truly understand mass incarceration, we should examine what caused America’s prison population to grow so dramatically over the last several decades. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Thomas L. Knapp‘s “Ferguson: Nixon Would Make a Solitude and Call it Peace” read Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. I lived near Ferguson for 12 years. I drove an ice cream truck up and down its streets for two summers. I seriously considered renting an apartment in Canfield Green, the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Trevor Hultner‘s “No, a Soldier Cop on Every Corner Does Not Sound Great” read Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. The most obvious statement to make at the outset is that neither jaywalking nor suspicion of petty theft nor running away from cops are crimes punishable by death anywhere in the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “The United Police States of America” read Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. Historian and political scientist Mark Neocleous explains that the “term Polizeistaat, usually translated as ‘police state,’ came into general English usage in the 1930s,” increasingly used at that time to describe totalitarian governments such as…

Last week in Michigan, Elijah Woody was arrested for openly carrying his gun. Thankfully Woody was not shot dead, but his story highlights the inequality of gun rights for certain groups in the United States. If he was a white man, the cops probably would not have stopped him. If they had, and the white man had…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Cory Massimino‘s “Police State Prompts Pointless Paperwork” read Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. The neoconservatives have one thing right; terrorism is a threat to America. They just don’t know who the real terrorists are. The real terrorists are in our neighborhoods — walking around in dark outfits wearing badges and…

In a comment on last week’s post on The Labor Politics of Prisons, Steve Robinson said that my discussion of guards unions was “interesting given past posts about the for-profit prison industry.” He noted that while prison guard unions push for increased incarceration, they also are generally harmed by prison privatization, as private prison contractors have incentives to…

It’s been interesting to watch information go back and forth on the shooting of Michael Brown, and to watch people’s reactions to that information. After initial reports that Brown had been shot in the back, early autopsies showed that the bullets actually entered through the front (one shot which grazed the hand may have come…

The killing of an unarmed young black man in Ferguson, Missouri and the brutal response of police forces there to protesters brought down much needed media examination of the practices of police forces in the US. Several interviews reveal stories of constant police harassment, showing the singling out of minorities by law enforcement to be a…

The police rampage in Ferguson, Missouri has increased public awareness of police militarization and drawn well-deserved attention to writers like Radley Balko who’ve documented the proliferation of military equipment and culture in local police forces over the past decade. It’s certainly true that the post-9/11 security state and the Global War on Terror have flooded…

The protests, police violence, and repression in Ferguson have sparked nationwide conversations about police militarization and misconduct. There’s some incredibly promising potential here, as more and more people become aware of the brutality of the modern criminal justice system. However, there are also some potential pitfalls that deserve cautious examination. First, the good. Popular commentators…

In response to the chaos in Ferguson, MO, US president Barack Obama has ordered a review of federal programs and funding that allow state and local law enforcement to acquire military equipment. Whoopty doo. It’s no surprise to those who understand the kind of perverse incentives inherent in government that it took until now for…

Ferguson, Missouri’s police department has released its report on the August 9th shooting death of teenager Michael Brown, a redacted document that ACLU attorney Tony Rothert says violates Missouri’s Sunshine Law by omitting key information. Brown’s death at the hands of a Ferguson police officer provoked impassioned demonstrations and debates on police brutality and the very…

The tragic chaos in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting of an unarmed teenager and massive protests has prompted a discussion police power and how far it should extend. For the anarchist, the answer is simple: police power shouldn’t exist. “But what would you do with all the psychopaths and violent people?” This is perhaps the…

Armanda Marcotte recently wrote about the supposed refutation of libertarian arguments represented by the Ferguson protests. She acts surprised that a “few libertarian types,” other than Radley Balko, are attempting to sound consistent on police power in Ferguson, as if most libertarians had previously been endorsing this kind of policing response. She also goes on…

A Teenager Slain On Saturday, August 9, eighteen-year-old Michael Brown was walking with a friend on the 2900 block of Canfield Drive in Ferguson, Missouri. He was on his way home on the hot, humid afternoon, walking down the middle of the street when the two were approached by Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. Reports of what…

Last week, Radley Balko published an interesting piece on the question “After Ferguson, how should police respond to protests?”  He contrasted the militarized approach seen in Ferguson and in the Battle of Seattle with less reactionary and more cooperative forms of policing. One police chief Balko praised was Chris Burbank of Salt Lake City, my hometown….

Ferguson, Missouri is — pardon the unintended pun — a moving target. Events keep taking erratic directions, superseding comment as fast as it’s written. So I’ll open with context as of this writing: After a week of combat in the streets, governor Jay Nixon has ordered Missouri’s National Guard out to, as his office says in a statement, “help restore peace…