The No1 Ethical retailer for Books, CD’s, DVD’s & Games
30 Day Refund Guarantee

Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District

Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District

by PeterMoskos (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2008

    $21.68

  • New

    Paperback 2009

    $21.78
Synopsis

Cop in the Hood is an explosive insider's story of what it is really like to be a police officer on the front lines of the war on drugs. Harvard-trained sociologist Peter Moskos became a cop in Baltimore's roughest neighborhood - the Eastern District, also the location for the first season of the critically acclaimed HBO drama The Wire - where he experienced real-life poverty and violent crime firsthand. This revised and corrected edition of Cop in the Hood provides an unforgettable window into the world that outsiders never see - the thriving drug corners, the nerve-rattling patrols, and the heartbreaking failure of 911.Moskos reveals the truth about the drug war and why it is engineered to fail - a truth he learned on the midnight shift. He describes police academy graduates fully unprepared for the realities of the street. He tells of a criminal justice system that incarcerates poor black men on a mass scale - a self-defeating system that measures success by arrest quotas and fosters a street code at odds with the rest of society - and argues for drug legalization as the only realistic way to end drug violence and let cops once again protect and serve. Moskos shows how officers in the ghetto are less concerned with those policed than with self-preservation and maximizing overtime pay - yet how any one of them would give their life for a fellow officer. Cop in the Hood ventures deep behind the Thin Blue Line to disclose the inner workings of law enforcement in America's inner cities. Those who read it will never view the badge the same way again.

$21.68

Save:$1.20 (5%)

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 245
 Edition: Revised
 Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 02 Jun 2008
ISBN 10: 0691140081
ISBN 13: 9780691140087
Book Overview: A devastating critique of America's failed war on drugs. Cop in the Hood is a powerful and truly unique document in the sociology of criminal justice. Using an original blend of personal experience, adroit cultural interpretation, and hard-edged sociological analysis, Moskos sympathetically dissects the social context of the drug users' world, and shows us this tragedy close up from the police perspective. -- Orlando Patterson, Harvard University Cop in the Hood is a thoughtful, highly entertaining record of a police officer's year spent patrolling one of the country's toughest urban districts, delivered by Moskos, who wore the uniform. For those who are interested in crime and how things work, and for readers seeking a reasoned look at the war on drugs and its implications, this is the handbook. -- George Pelecanos, writer and producer for The Wire This riveting tale of policing begins honestly and continues with great sincerity and pathos. A sensitive and timely account of the daily trials of police work by someone who knows Baltimore's streets firsthand, Cop in the Hood challenges journalists, social scientists, and others who profess knowledge of the inner city to walk those streets before making bold declarations and righteous claims for policy and redress. A must-read. -- Sudhir Venkatesh, author of Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets Peter Moskos, a sociologist by training, somewhat inadvertently became a police officer. Cop in the Hood is the fortuitous and fascinating result. It gives the reader the real dope from someone with the training and ability to put the street into the larger context. Highly recommended. -- Alex Tabarrok, George Mason University, cofounder of marginalrevolution.com Cop in the Hood is an extremely valuable study centered on patrolling a drug-infested Baltimore police district. Readers interested in drug policy, criminology, or policing cannot help but to learn a lot from this book. I know that I did, and I am grateful to the author. Many of his insights are eye-opening. His voice is unique and essential in debates concerning drug-policy reforms. -- Jim Leitzel, University of Chicago

Media Reviews
Remarkable... In Cop in the Hood, Mr. Moskos manages to capture a world that most people know only through the distorting prism of television and film, where police officers are usually portrayed as quixotically heroic or contemptibly corrupt. For all the book's detail, Mr. Moskos reserves his most passionate writing for a call to abandon the war on drugs. He claims that the drug war--with its violent turf battles and revolving-door cycles of arrest--has caused more social devastation the drugs themselves. -- Daniel Horan Wall Street Journal Moskos frankly records his experiences with poverty, violence, drugs and despair in the gritty ghetto. Moskos's overview of policing problems covers everything from arrest quotas, corrupt cops and excess paperwork to the reliance on patrolling in cars, responding to a barrage of 911 calls, rather than patrolling on foot to prevent crimes. Moskos blends narrative and analysis, adding an authoritative tone to this adrenaline-accelerating night ride that reveals the stark realities of law enforcement while illuminating little-known aspects of police procedures. Publishers Weekly [G]enuinely eye-opening...Moskos offers a compelling account of why a uniformed police patrol 'does little but temporarily disrupt public drug-dealing'--and hence why the 'war on drugs' is so helplessly self-defeating. Times Higher Education Truly excellent. This is one of the two or three best conceptual analyses of cops and robbers I have read. It is mandatory reading for all fans of The Wire and recommended for everyone else. -- Tyler Cowen Marginal Revolution Riveting ... an unsparing boys-in-blue procedural that succeeds on its own plentiful--and wonderfully sympathetic--merits. Moskos ... intermingles cops-and-robbers verisimilitude and progressive social science, yet keeps his reportage clear-eyed, his conclusions pathos-free. What results is a thoughtful, measured critique--of the failed drug war, its discontents, and the self-defeating criminal-justice system looming just behind. The Atlantic [An] objective, incisive and intelligent account of police work. Moskos's graphic descriptions of the drug culture in Baltimore's Eastern District are the most detailed and analytical to be found anywhere. What distinguishes Moskos's book...is the author's plea for greater flexibility in addressing the rampant drug crisis. -- Arnold Ages Indiana Jewish Post & Opinion About halfway through Cop in the Hood, a new book about policing Baltimore, author Peter Moskos hits upon an important theme: The Police Department ought to do more to prevent crime, instead of simply reacting to it. Unlike the typical academic, Moskos makes these observations with an air of authenticity because of the 14 months he worked as a patrol officer in the Eastern District. -- Annie Linskey Baltimore Sun Highly readable -- Dolan Cummings Culture Wars Moskos takes a long, hard look at the drug war and pronounces it a failure. The most encouraging aspect of this book is its portrait of the police officers themselves. Readers of Cop in the Hood are left with a renewed appreciation for the men in blue. -- Rachel DiCarlo Currie The American
Author Bio
Peter Moskos is assistant professor of law, police science, and criminal justice administration at the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is a former Baltimore City police officer.