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Policing the Anticommunity: Race, Deterritorialization, and Labor Market Reorganization in South Los Angeles
Author(s) -
Roussell Aaron
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/lasr.12168
Subject(s) - precinct , rhetoric , sociology , institution , general partnership , race (biology) , deterritorialization , corporate governance , political science , criminology , gender studies , social science , economics , law , management , philosophy , linguistics
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.