A01=Michael Casiano
Author_Michael Casiano
Category=JBSD
Category=JKSW1
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=WQH
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9780252046773
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 07 Oct 2025
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The racist roots of modern policing in Baltimore
By the early twentieth century, postbellum assaults on civil rights and the advent of Jim Crow expanded Baltimore’s law enforcement into a vast network designed to oppress Black people. Michael Casiano’s history charts the institutional consolidation of the city’s post–Civil War police state.
Authorities in Baltimore organized and established municipal power in distinct but connected sites that included jails, areas of political and social activism, public schools, street corners, courtrooms, and homes. Casiano analyzes policing in light of two parallel and inextricable realities of the city’s governance. First, policing evolved from an inefficient and vigilante-driven system into a modern and paramilitary endeavor focused on suppressing citizens and maximizing the power, wealth, and reach of capitalists. Second, decades of racial antagonism shaped Baltimore policing into an apparatus primarily oriented around subduing Black freedom.
A compelling urban history, Let Us Alone uses voices from all levels of society to examine police power, incarceration, and the perils of being Black in post–Civil War Baltimore.
By the early twentieth century, postbellum assaults on civil rights and the advent of Jim Crow expanded Baltimore’s law enforcement into a vast network designed to oppress Black people. Michael Casiano’s history charts the institutional consolidation of the city’s post–Civil War police state.
Authorities in Baltimore organized and established municipal power in distinct but connected sites that included jails, areas of political and social activism, public schools, street corners, courtrooms, and homes. Casiano analyzes policing in light of two parallel and inextricable realities of the city’s governance. First, policing evolved from an inefficient and vigilante-driven system into a modern and paramilitary endeavor focused on suppressing citizens and maximizing the power, wealth, and reach of capitalists. Second, decades of racial antagonism shaped Baltimore policing into an apparatus primarily oriented around subduing Black freedom.
A compelling urban history, Let Us Alone uses voices from all levels of society to examine police power, incarceration, and the perils of being Black in post–Civil War Baltimore.
Michael Casiano is an assistant professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
