Edge of the Knife

Comparing the use of violence by police forces in Latin America and the United States as well as in the Caribbean, and drawing on considerable field research, Chevigny investigates torture and the use of deadly force, in addition to less drastic forms of police violence, in six major urban centres. He examines military and community models of policing and the connection between corruption and violence. The author also compares institutions of accountability as diverse as criminal and civil courts, administrative disciplines, civilian review boards, internal controls and external auditors, and the pressure exerted by international human-rights standards. Searching for the sources of official violence, and ultimately for ways of controlling it, he argues that the way in which criminal matters are patrolled and investigated correlates with the city's social order. Chevigny arrives at the conclusion that when citizens have little confidence in their government, do not participate in it or look to it for protection, they turn to violent self-help, and thus police violence becomes the mirror of vigilantism.
A growing fear of crime, combined with a sense of powerlessness and lack of participation also lends public support to extra-legal violence by the police themselves, whose activities are often fostered and protected by official corruption. Conversely, persistent government action against crime, including accountability for police violence, discourages vigilantism as well as official violence.