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Rhetoric & Public Affairs 4.3 (2001) 566-568



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Book Review

Cop Knowledge:
Police Power and Cultural Narrative in Twentieth-Century America


Cop Knowledge: Police Power and Cultural Narrative in Twentieth-Century America. By Christopher P. Wilson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000; pp. xii + 282, 13 halftones. $42.00 cloth; $16.00 paper.

Christopher P. Wilson introduces this work as a book about police power that probes a series of literary, journalistic, and mass cultural portrayals of everyday police authority in America. Throughout our lives we have watched police dramas, read news accounts, and witnessed officers chasing criminals across our television screens in real-life programs. Wilson contends that this ever-present visage of police officers, and the criminals they battle, has formed the basis of most people's knowledge about the world of cops. It could be said that police work has been presented to us in a manner unlike any other profession or occupation in our culture.

Wilson traces the stories of American police officers in a unique and captivating manner. The presentation begins in 1890's New York City as Stephen Crane conducts a study of the life of the New York City policemen, and the path ends with the contemporary issue of community policing. This journey through the history of twentieth-century policing makes stops at the classic film The Naked City, the novels of Wambaugh, and the True Crime phenomenon of the 1980s. Wilson provides an interpretation of how these stories told about police work are inextricably linked with actual everyday practices of officers and the neoconservatism of modern society.

We get an in-depth look at police power and the world of cops through the cultural storytelling of various media. Wilson's interest in policing is not limited to the everyday practices of police officers, but is extended to what he refers to as the symbolic rhetoric where cultural authority--twentieth-century notions of civility, duty, and public participation--have been reenacted and debated (6). In so doing, Wilson explores the historical questions about policing, cultural engagement and representation by the media, and questions about peoples' conceptions of political authority and how this cultural interpretation of authority occurs.

The book is presented in eight chapters, with an introduction and thoughtful epilogue. There are thirteen illustrations that amplify the text. The chapters follow the time-line of the twentieth century and the changing landscape of police work and public attitudes. The main body of the book is a praiseworthy account of the [End Page 566] play between media representation and public knowledge about policing. This is much more than a simple historical account of media portrayals of policing. Through the cultural studies lens, this work provides the reader with a critical perspective to view the role of policing in contemporary society. It goes on to show how policing is what Wilson termed an "interstitial" position of law, the exercise of power, and an understanding of crime and social order. Wilson readily points out that this is a partial account that relies on metropolitan crime news, popular fiction and nonfiction, exposé, and one film.

Wilson's style can be described as engaging. His ability to illustrate the major turns in media representation and the social landscape invites the reader to question the role of policing in contemporary society, especially in light of the rhetoric of community policing. The reader is left with a greater understanding of the "interstitial" position of policing, and that policing is not the simple task of catching criminals as we frequently witness in police dramas. Wilson succeeds in establishing his personal position on "cop knowledge: by bringing together several disciplinary perspectives and critiquing their methods. In so doing, he offers a different story about policing in America. As a contribution to scholarship, Wilson brings together his questions from the three divergent strands of police management, media representation of criminal disorder, and political authority. He weaves them together to form a distinctive perspective that critically addresses policing. This is a willingly readable text that provides a valuable position that...

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