Policing Religion

This chapter focuses on the role that policing plays in classifying groups, beliefs, and practices as either religious or secular. Almost from the very beginning of the group, MOVE was under surveillance from the city police’s extensive surveillance apparatus. By the early 1980s, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Pennsylvania State Police, and the Secret Service had all targeted MOVE for surveillance, infiltration, or prosecution. To be sure, MOVE brought much of this attention on themselves. But their claims to religious legitimacy were met, early on, with the presumption of criminality. One reason MOVE was not allowed to be a religion was because MOVE never existed apart from government policing and surveillance.