"Crime talk is never just about crime"
An interview with Stuart Schrader
The 2020s opened with the murder of George Floyd, which was followed by a wave of activism and intense debate surrounding the future of policing in the United States. Today, conventional wisdom holds that the left ought to be chastened by backlash to slogans like “defund the police,” but the abuses of the carceral state continue to haunt us. The violence of the second Trump administration demands a reckoning with how American law enforcement became such a potent weapon for an aspiring authoritarian regime to wield, while New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani has already confronted a series of difficult questions about how he will govern as a democratic socialist in a city with a massive, lavishly funded, and hyper-reactionary police force.
To think through these issues and more, we spoke with Stuart Schrader for our Issue Sixteen interview. Schrader, Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism at Johns Hopkins University, is one of the foremost scholars of the history of American policing and the author of a forthcoming book on police unionism. Read our conversation with him online today.
“Our Diminished Epoch” | An Interview with Stuart Schrader
I reject the common sense that says that mayors must listen to the police more than the policed. De Blasio tried to buck it. I hope Mamdani will bury it.
On Sunday, December 14, from 12–7 p.m., you can find The Drift at Press Play at Pioneer Works. Our table will have merch and back issues for sale. Please stop by and say hi!
