
Gotham's War Within a War
Policing and the Birth of Law-and-Order Liberalism in World War II-Era New York City
Emily Brooks(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 31. October 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
258 pages
978-1-4696-7659-3 (ISBN)
Description
A surprising history unfolded in New Deal- and World War II-era New York City under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, members of the NYPD had worked to enforce partisan political power rather than focus on crime. That changed when La Guardia took office in 1934 and shifted the city's priorities toward liberal reform. La Guardia's approach to low-level policing anticipated later trends in law enforcement, including "broken windows" theory and "stop and frisk" policy. Police officers worked to preserve urban order by controlling vice, including juvenile delinquency, prostitution, gambling, and the "disorderly" establishments that officials believed housed these activities.
This mode of policing was central to La Guardia's influential vision of urban governance, but it was met with resistance from the Black New Yorkers, youth, and working-class women it primarily targeted. The mobilization for World War II introduced new opportunities for the NYPD to intensify policing and criminalize these groups with federal support. In the 1930s these communities were framed as perils to urban order; during the militarized war years, they became a supposed threat to national security itself. Brooks recasts the evolution of urban policing by revealing that the rise of law-and-order liberalism was inseparable from the surveillance, militarism, and nationalism of war.
This mode of policing was central to La Guardia's influential vision of urban governance, but it was met with resistance from the Black New Yorkers, youth, and working-class women it primarily targeted. The mobilization for World War II introduced new opportunities for the NYPD to intensify policing and criminalize these groups with federal support. In the 1930s these communities were framed as perils to urban order; during the militarized war years, they became a supposed threat to national security itself. Brooks recasts the evolution of urban policing by revealing that the rise of law-and-order liberalism was inseparable from the surveillance, militarism, and nationalism of war.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
10 photos
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
448 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4696-7659-3 (9781469676593)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Emily Brooks is a full-time curriculum writer at the New York Public Library's Center for Educators and Schools. She received her PhD in history from the Graduate Center at the City University in New York.