The War on Cops

Violence surged in 2015. America’s fifty largest cities saw the sharpest homicide increase in a quarter century. The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe names the cause: a political and cultural offensive against policing itself. Heather Mac Donald demonstrates how undermining law enforcement threatens to reverse decades of progress and return urban America to chaos.

For twenty years, proactive strategies transformed cities. In New York, Broken Windows policing and data-driven accountability turned crime-plagued neighborhoods into safe places to live, work, and raise families. The lives saved were overwhelmingly minority, as seniors, shopkeepers, and children finally escaped daily violence. But by portraying officers as enemies, movements like Black Lives Matter weakened the very practices that worked. The “Ferguson Effect” — a retreat from proactive tactics — opened the door for criminals to reclaim the streets.

Mac Donald takes on the myths that sustain the anti-police crusade. She unpacks the reality behind Ferguson, dismantles the distortion of stop-and-frisk, and shows why incarceration reflects violent crime patterns rather than racism. Drawing on crime statistics, court rulings, and real-world cases, she documents how retreating from policing devastates the vulnerable and emboldens the violent.

The stakes extend beyond crime rates. Delegitimizing law enforcement erodes the very framework of order on which cities depend. Officers pelted with bricks, communities left unprotected, and riots returning to the headlines mark what happens when ideology trumps reality. For readers concerned with public safety, justice, and the survival of functioning cities, The War on Cops is a bracing call to face the facts and defend what works. (2016, pb, 240pp)