New from the University of North Carolina Press: Brown and Blue: Mexican Americans, Law Enforcement, and Civil Rights in the Southwest, 1935–2025 by Brian D. Behnken.
About the book, from the publisher:
This book offers a sweeping history of Mexican American interactions with law enforcement and the criminal justice system in the US Southwest. Looking primarily at Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas, Brown and Blue tells a complex story: Violent, often racist acts committed by police against Mexican American people sparked protests demanding reform, and criminal justice authorities sometimes responded positively to these protests with measures such as recruiting Mexican Americans into local police forces and altering training procedures at police academies.The Page 99 Test: Fighting Their Own Battles.
Brian D. Behnken demonstrates the central role that the struggle for police reform played in the twentieth-century Chicano movement, and the ways its relevance continues to the present. By linking social activism and law enforcement, Behnken illuminates how the policing issues of today developed and what reform remains to be done.
--Marshal Zeringue
