To Protect and Serve

How to Fix America's Police

By: Norm Stamper

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

American policing is in crisis. The last decade witnessed a vast increase in police aggression, misconduct, and militarization, along with a corresponding reduction in transparency and accountability. Nowhere is this more noticeable and painful than in African American and other ethnic minority communities. Racism - from raw, individualized versions to insidious systemic examples - appears to be on the rise in our police departments. Overall, our police officers have grown more and more alienated from the people they've been hired to serve. In To Protect and Serve, Norm Stamper offers new insights into the conditions that have created this crisis, reminding us that police in a democratic society belong to the people - and not the other way around.

To Protect and Serve also delivers a revolutionary new model for American law enforcement: the community-based police department. It calls for citizen participation in all aspects of police operations: policymaking, program development, crime fighting and service delivery, entry-level and ongoing education and training, oversight of police conduct, and, especially relevant to today's challenges, joint community-police crisis management. Nothing will ever change until the system itself is radically restructured, and here Norm Stamper shows us how.

©2016 Norm Stamper (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Insightful, balanced, evidence-based, comprehensiv

What did you love best about To Protect and Serve?

Excellent overview of issues in policing with references to research, personal experience, and acknowledgements of limitations of knowledge and author's personal biases. Terrific.

Insights from a veteran officer of 34 years

Stamper has 34 years of experience serving as a police officer. In 1971, he became San Diego's youngest lieutenant. A year later, he shot and killed a man who was threatening a 3-year-old-child, so he knows what it means to use lethal force. In 1975, he became SDPD's youngest captain, and then in 1994 he became police chief in Seattle and was responsible for ordering the use of tear gas against civilians.

In other words, Stamper has over 3 decades of experience across two major cities with personal experience using lethal force and controversial crowd control. So I think it's worth listening to his observations and suggestions. I noticed some reviews describe the book as "one sided" and "liberal" because of Stamper's observation of racism, bigotry, and excessive violence within police culture. I suppose if you don't think they're anything wrong with law enforcement in the US currently, there's no point in reading a book subtitled "How to Fix America's Police." But if you want an inside perspective into the problem and possible solutions, this is a must read.

Good listen but very one sided

Good listen and glad I experienced this book. However it is very one sided and extremely liberal.

Truth mixed with liberal rhetoric

Hoped for a higher level of objective truth. Sad that a liberal view on issues was woven into much of the useful insights. Also, seemed like two different people wrote this, depending upon which sentence you read. And it does not help that the narrator embellished and accentuated anything he perceived as negative facts on LE—even when they were not. So, if you do buy it, you might be better off reading it vs. listening to the audio book version.

Such bias from a Non-LE POV

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If this former police officer was able to actually see what was going on in policing and write from a stand point that wasn't so one sided. Also when someone writes about civil litigations and takes information from what was claimed and not what was proved to have happened and writes it as fact that really causes issues with how legitimate the author's ability to bring forward credible information for people to make informed decisions.

What was most disappointing about Norm Stamper’s story?

I wonder what type of police officer he was and if he has ever had to be in a situation where he had deadly force used against him or if he had to use deadly force against someone else. I also wonder how many times he has actually used force to be able to speak about use of force from the perspective as what he claims to be an expert. A person who may be promoted may be an expert in management but does not necessarily mean they have a true understanding of use of force incidents. It is obvious to me that he has a limited understanding on this subject topic but speaks about it as an expert.