High Noon in the Ghetto

Abstract

Get-tough policing was not the only possible response to the urban uprisings of the 1960s as this chapter shows. African American and Mexican American residents challenged punitive crime policy, demanded police accountability, and promoted anti–police abuse activism. Residents and activists, such as the Black Panthers, Brown Berets, imagined the meaning of safety that rested on community control of the police. Yet the LAPD responded to these movements by framing them as a threat to order to justify increased officer discretion to harass, arrest, and repress. This cut short the possibility for alternative models of policing and ensured that grievances with the police persisted.