Book Review: Policing Black bodies: How Black lives are surveilled and how to work for change

• Date: 01 October 2019
• Author: Caroline M. Bailey
• DOI: 10.1177/2153368719829523
• Published date: 01 October 2019
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews
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are more complex than previously thought. Future research will benefit from taking
into account the complexity Martinez describes.
References
Dura´n, R. (2013). Gang life in two cities: An insiderO˜s journey. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press.
Rios, V. M. (2017). Human targets: Schools, police, and the criminalization of Latino youth.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Hattery, A. J., & Smith, E. (2017). Policing Black bodies: How Black lives are surveilled and how to work
for change. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 284 p., $34.00, ISBN: 978-1442276956
Reviewed by: Caroline M. Bailey, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State
University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
DOI: 10.1177/2153368719829523
Overview
Policing Black Bodies: How Black Lives Are Surveilled and How to Work for Change
by Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith challenges the ways in which we consider the
imposition of control mechanisms on people of color in the United States, particularly
African Americans. Using several theoretical perspectives—theory of color-blind
racism and intersectional theory—the authors interrogate the policing of Black bod-
ies by various institutions in America through the lens of the criminal justice system.
Specifically, the authors assert that intersectionality is a theoretical paradigm that
exposes how several systems within the United States coalesce to create power that
produces both privilege and oppression. Further, they demonstrate how color-blind
racism is used as a mechanism to diminish the existence of actual racism, thus creating
an environment for racist practices to go on unrecognized. As such, these authors
provide an in-depth examination of the various mechanisms of formal and informal
social control that contributes to the ways in which African American bodies are
viewed and treated in America. Central to their argument, they suggest that America is
stratified in a manner that disadvantages African Americans.
The authors structure the...