Shielded

How the Police Became Untouchable

By: Joanna Schwartz

Narrated by: Joanna Schwartz

Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

An urgent and definitive examination of how the legal system prevents accountability for police misconduct, from one of the country's leading scholars on policing

In recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have brought much-needed attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct. Yet it remains nearly impossible to hold police accountable for abuses of power—the decisions of the Supreme Court, state and local governments, and policy makers have, over decades, made the police all but untouchable.

In Shielded, University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Joanna Schwartz exposes the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs, with insightful analyses about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants. The product of more than two decades of advocacy and research, Shielded is a timely and necessary investigation into why civil rights litigation so rarely leads to justice or prevents future police misconduct. Weaving powerful true stories of people seeking restitution for violated rights, cutting across race, gender, criminal history, tax bracket, and zip code, Schwartz paints a compelling picture of the human cost of our failing criminal justice system, bringing clarity to a problem that is widely known but little understood. Shielded is a masterful work of immediate and enduring consequence, revealing what tragically familiar calls for “justice” truly entail.

©2023 Robert Longo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“A rigorous examination of why, most of the time, dirty cops get away with violating their badges. . . . [T]old with passion and eloquence . . . [E]xceptionally lucid and well-argued.”—The Washington Post

“Through deep research and gripping storytelling, Schwartz reveals a broken legal system in which justice so often remains elusive for those whose lives have been shattered by police violence. Cutting through polemics and misinformation, Shielded is both a searing indictment of our current system and a clear-eyed roadmap for change. This is a profound and indispensable work that will shape the national discussion around police accountability for years to come.”—Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

“Shielded is truly a must read for anyone who wants to understand why we lack an effective system of legal accountability for police violence and misconduct in our country. By unsparingly sharing the stories of just a few of the innocent victims whose lives have been devastated by police violence, Schwartz reveals how the civil rights legal regime designed to provide recourse to individuals subjected to unwarranted state violence has been disabled by more than a century of restrictive judicial decision-making and lawmaker inaction. Once you understand how we got here, Schwartz’s smart, pragmatic proposals for change ring clear and true.”—Sherrilyn Ifill, former president and director-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

"Schwartz maintains that while the concern that ‘public safety will be imperiled by too much oversight’ has always accompanied the desire to hold the police accountable, it is now nearly an unquestioned assumption that lawsuits against the police exact too high a price. . . . But this assumption, Schwartz contends, is a myth that has distorted the civil justice system by persuading judges of the need to insulate the police from accountability." —New York Review of Books

Extremely important

This book was the perfect mix of educational and storytelling with real life anecdotes from folks who experienced brutality at the hands of the police and had to navigate a system stacked against them.

The amount of time and research that clearly went into this book is beyond impressive. This author is clearly an expert on this topic and every law student should read this book.

Even if you are not a law student, the author managed to make this book approachable and digestible for all audiences.

Highly recommend this book. I listened to it as an audio book and the author narrates it, which I love.

buy this book!

excellent and informative book about how American cops get away with everything they do to us. ACAB.

Eye Opening

This is a masterful analysis of the subject of police wrongdoing and qualified immunity. Authoritarianism needs some boundaries and penalties. This is an eye-opening book with incredible research and even better suggestions for improvement in our system to limit the horrific damage done to the public when they encounter law-enforcement.

Riveting! Explains our epidemic of police violence

This amazing book traces the history of American legal, social and political forces that have created the conditions protecting political brutality. The author (who narrates the book like the best of professional narrators) makes complex legal concepts and history clear and interesting to non-lawyers and lawyers alike. She shows how these forces impact innocent people going about their lives when cops brutalize them and the people they love. Required reading for anyone hoping to understand how we got here and how things can change for the better.

A compelling and eye-opening view into the injustices of our country.

I really enjoyed this title. The author is a great narrator as well. I feel like it was beneficial and eye opening for a person who has actually worked in public safety, and has not always been cognizant of the way things potentially could be perceived, or could be handled differently.

A must read

Anyone who thinks our country’s courts are fair, government just, and police unbiased must read this book.

Ground breaking

This book meticulously shows how bad apples & their rotten trees are protected by qualified immunity, biased judges & juries. If good law enforcement officers & judges want us to have faith in them, they need to make it easier to get rid of the predators in their ranks.

Informative

Informative with the proper depth of detail without going so deep as to lose the legal layman audience.

Great read! Very insightful!

Great read! Very insightful! Makes me think that I never want another encounter with law enforcement. The only protect & serve people that doesn't resemble myself.

Must read!

Packed with essential information and evidence, and compelling arguments for reforming our system of policing and civil rights.