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How the Police Became Untouchable
by Joanna Schwartz
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 policymakers have, over decades, made the police all but untouchable.
In Shielded, UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz exposes the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs, cutting across race, gender, criminal history, tax bracket, and zip code. 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 with insightful analyses about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants, 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.
"Rigorous research, in-depth analysis, and poignant case studies make this a must-read study of an urgent social issue." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A well-reasoned case for reforms to create a better system of police accountability." - Kirkus Reviews
"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
"Every day brings another example of an abusive police officer avoiding punishment. How exactly do the police keep getting away with it? What are the laws and policies that protect them? And, most crucially, how can we change this system? Full of human stories, detailed data, and powerful arguments, Shielded will answer these urgent questions and should be on the reading list of every legislator, policymaker, and ordinary citizen. We need this book, and we need it now." - James Forman Jr., Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
"Through meticulous research and compelling human stories, Shielded reveals how police misconduct impacts everyone, and how our legal system is designed to prevent accountability at every turn. With clarity and purpose, Schwartz takes aim at the profound flaws in how we deal with police violence, showing the ways in which our judiciary is designed to fail the most vulnerable among us—and how another way forward is possible." - Kimberlé Crenshaw, cofounder of the African American Policy Forum and #SayHerName campaign
This information about Shielded was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Joanna Schwartz is a professor of law at UCLA, where she teaches civil procedure and courses on police accountability and public interest lawyering. Her writing, commentary, and research about police misconduct, qualified immunity, indemnification, and local government budgeting have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Christian Science Monitor, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, CNN, NPR, and elsewhere. Her research has been quoted and cited by United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and more than two dozen state supreme courts, federal circuit courts, and federal district courts.
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