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Policing the Anticommunity: Race, Deterritorialization, and Labor Market Reorganization in South Los Angeles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Aaron Roussell
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Abstract

Recent decades have seen the rise of both community partnerships and the carceral state. Community policing in Los Angeles arose after the 1992 uprisings and was built on two conceptual building blocks—the territorial imperative and community partnership—which remain central more than 20 years later. At the same time, LA has undergone a significant black-to-Latino demographic shift linked with its restructured economy. This article discusses these changes using archival analysis and 5 years of participant observation in one South LA precinct. Police help to reshape the demography of South LA in ways conducive to post-Fordist economic shifts. The “community” concept appropriated by urban governance initiatives is composed against an unwanted “anticommunity,” which serves to heighten territorial control over black and Latino residents. Rather than encourage community cogovernance over the institution of policing, community rhetoric facilitates racial preference in neighborhood transition under the auspices of an increasingly bifurcated labor market.

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Articles
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Law & Society Review , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 813 - 845
Copyright
© 2015 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

I would like to thank the residents and officers of South Division for their candidness, time, and patience with this research. Additional appreciation to Luis D. Gascón for our ongoing collaboration and Cheryl Maxson for providing data. Finally, many thanks to Terressa Benz, Kristin Haltinner, Raoul Liévanos, Mona Lynch, Jodie Nicotra, Marisa Omori, and Monica Williams for their helpful comments on various drafts of this manuscript, as well as my long-suffering reviewers and editors who helped refine and improve these arguments. I am very grateful.

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