Luis Fernandez

"It has become somewhat axiomatic to refer to the police as the ‘gatekeepers’ of the criminal justice system and thus as a mechanism for the provision of justice. And yet, when we conceptualize the police in this way, what is often taken for granted is the exact nature of that role and its larger social meaning. Indeed, we know that police deliver justice more efficiently to some and injustice to others. Rethinking Policing and Justice critically examines the role of policing (both state and non-state forms) in the provision of justice (and injustice). In essence, it presents work that highlights how different communities and groups have sought alternatives to policing, sometimes taking over the functions of policing. It also shows a variety of theoretical, methodology, and other approaches for the critical evaluation of law enforcement, highlighing different insights into alternative modes of policing, as we seek to understand and redraft the relationship between policing and justice.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Justice Review."

The link below is to a pdf....

"This volume of collected essays by some of the most prominent academics studying anarchism bridges the gap between anarchist activism on the streets and anarchist theory in the academy. Focusing on anarchist theory, pedagogy, methodologies, praxis, and the future, this edition will strike a chord for anyone interested in radical social change.

This interdisciplinary work highlights connections between anarchism and other perspectives such as feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, post-modernism and post-structuralism, animal liberation, and environmental justice. Featuring original articles, this volume brings together a wide variety of anarchist voices whilst stressing anarchism's tradition of dissent. This book is a must buy for the critical teacher, student, and activist interested in the state of the art of anarchism studies."

Shutting Down the Streets revamps the literature on social control and reveals the significance of protest policing in the era of alterglobalization. Based on direct observation of more than 20 global summits, the book demonstrates that social control is not only global, but also preemptive, and that it relegates dissent to the realm of criminality. The authors document in detail how social control forecloses the spaces through which social movements nurture the development of dissent and effect disruptive challenges. The book shows that much “policing of protest” is political violence against democracy

"In November 1999, fifty-thousand anti-globalization activists converged on Seattle to shut down the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Meeting. Using innovative and network-based strategies, the protesters left police flummoxed, desperately searching for ways to control the crowds in Seattle and the emerging anti-corporate globalization movement. Faced with these network-based tactics, law enforcement agencies transformed their policing and social control mechanisms to manage this new threat.

In Policing Dissent, Luis Fernandez provides a firsthand account of the changing nature of control efforts employed by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies when confronted with mass activism. Based on ethnographic research, and using an incisive, cutting-edge theoretical framework, Fernandez maps the use of legal, physical, and psychological approaches.

Policing Dissent also offers readers the richness of experiential detail and engaging stories often lacking in studies of police practices and social movements. This book does not merely seek to explain the causal relationship between repression and mobilization. Rather, it shows how social control strategies act on the mind and body of protesters."

A recent issue of Popular Mechanics featured an article on emerging surveillance technologies, showcasing the latest innovations in the field (Krebs 2009). The magazine asked provocatively, “Who’s Tracking You? ” and answered (indirectly), “everyone”, from your cell phone company, to your boss, your spouse and your government. Trying to describe the full range of the problem, the article indiscriminately mixed various surveillance techniques, from workplace spying methods with incidents involving modern ‘Peeping Toms’, quickly followed by descriptions of corporations tracking “your every move”, through mobile positioning systems in cell phones. Discursively, the message was simple: you are susceptible to surveillance and you should take protective measures. Fortunately for the reader, the magazine also offered tips on ‘fighting back’, mainly through commonsense suggestions for individuals, such as tracking the ‘cookies ’ in your Internet browser and turning off your cell phone. In t...

This article examines the state of legal control of social movements since the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) protest in Seattle, Washington. The authors argue that state control has changed significantly in recent years. As a result, the article outlines a general framework for the study of the social control of dissent, but focusing specifically on understanding how legal mechanisms are deployed to control protest. The second part of the article shows how activists responded to these control tactics.

Based on group interviews conducted in 2006 that included 71 social justice organizations, this paper analyzes the impact of surveillance on the exercise of assembly and association rights. We link these protected legal activities with analytic frameworks from social movements scholarship in order to further a socio-legal conception of political violence against social movements.

Politicians on both the left and the right typically see immigrant rights protests as a demand for U.S. citizenship. Our experience in the movement, however, suggests that undocumented people are demanding mobility before citizenship. The ability to move freely across borders is more important to them than is citizenship. Further, undocumented people belong to multiple political communities, and are demanding the right to participate in each. The idea of a citizenship that would give them the “right” to remain in one place does not resonate with them. “Home” is in multiple locations. The mobile nature of undocumented people, we argue, challenges the essential principles of the liberal state, particularly the concepts of sovereignty, territory, and citizenship.