-
The End of Policing
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $17.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
How to Hide an Empire
- A History of the Greater United States
- By: Daniel Immerwahr
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are familiar with maps that outline all 50 states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire", exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories - the islands, atolls, and archipelagos - this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, author Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.
-
-
How to beat a straw man to death
- By Susan on 01-25-20
By: Daniel Immerwahr
-
Antiracist Baby
- By: Ibram X. Kendi
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Guy Lockard
- Length: 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist comes a fresh new audiobook that empowers parents and children to uproot racism in our society and in ourselves. Antiracist Baby introduces the youngest listeners and the grown-ups in their lives to the concept and power of antiracism. Providing the language necessary to begin critical conversations at the earliest age, Antiracist Baby is the perfect gift for listeners of all ages dedicated to forming a just society.
-
-
This is not a children's book
- By Original_Patricia on 09-03-20
By: Ibram X. Kendi
-
Becoming Abolitionists
- Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom
- By: Derecka Purnell
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than a century, activists in the United States have tried to reform the police. From community policing initiatives to increasing diversity, none of it has stopped the police from killing about three people a day. Millions of people continue to protest police violence because these “solutions” do not match the problem: The police cannot be reformed. In Becoming Abolitionists, Purnell draws from her experiences as a lawyer, writer, and organizer initially skeptical about police abolition.
-
-
highly recommended
- By C.O. on 12-17-21
By: Derecka Purnell
-
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us
- Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice
- By: Mariame Kaba
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle.
-
-
content is great, but audiobook is unlistenable
- By Lesley Bredell on 03-22-22
By: Mariame Kaba
-
A People's Guide to Capitalism
- An Introduction to Marxist Economics
- By: Hadas Thier
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Economists regularly promote Capitalism as the greatest system ever to grace the planet. With the same breath, they implore us to leave the job of understanding the magical powers of the market to the "experts." Despite the efforts of these mainstream commentators to convince us otherwise, many of us have begun to question why this system has produced such vast inequality and wanton disregard for its own environmental destruction. This book offers answers to exactly these questions on their own terms: in the form of a radical economic theory.
By: Hadas Thier
-
The 1619 Project
- A New Origin Story
- By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper - editor, and others
- Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones, Full Cast
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together 18 essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.
-
-
History demands the official story be corrected
- By David C. on 12-05-21
By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others
-
How to Hide an Empire
- A History of the Greater United States
- By: Daniel Immerwahr
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are familiar with maps that outline all 50 states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire", exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories - the islands, atolls, and archipelagos - this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, author Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.
-
-
How to beat a straw man to death
- By Susan on 01-25-20
By: Daniel Immerwahr
-
Antiracist Baby
- By: Ibram X. Kendi
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Guy Lockard
- Length: 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist comes a fresh new audiobook that empowers parents and children to uproot racism in our society and in ourselves. Antiracist Baby introduces the youngest listeners and the grown-ups in their lives to the concept and power of antiracism. Providing the language necessary to begin critical conversations at the earliest age, Antiracist Baby is the perfect gift for listeners of all ages dedicated to forming a just society.
-
-
This is not a children's book
- By Original_Patricia on 09-03-20
By: Ibram X. Kendi
-
Becoming Abolitionists
- Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom
- By: Derecka Purnell
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than a century, activists in the United States have tried to reform the police. From community policing initiatives to increasing diversity, none of it has stopped the police from killing about three people a day. Millions of people continue to protest police violence because these “solutions” do not match the problem: The police cannot be reformed. In Becoming Abolitionists, Purnell draws from her experiences as a lawyer, writer, and organizer initially skeptical about police abolition.
-
-
highly recommended
- By C.O. on 12-17-21
By: Derecka Purnell
-
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us
- Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice
- By: Mariame Kaba
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle.
-
-
content is great, but audiobook is unlistenable
- By Lesley Bredell on 03-22-22
By: Mariame Kaba
-
A People's Guide to Capitalism
- An Introduction to Marxist Economics
- By: Hadas Thier
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Economists regularly promote Capitalism as the greatest system ever to grace the planet. With the same breath, they implore us to leave the job of understanding the magical powers of the market to the "experts." Despite the efforts of these mainstream commentators to convince us otherwise, many of us have begun to question why this system has produced such vast inequality and wanton disregard for its own environmental destruction. This book offers answers to exactly these questions on their own terms: in the form of a radical economic theory.
By: Hadas Thier
-
The 1619 Project
- A New Origin Story
- By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper - editor, and others
- Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones, Full Cast
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together 18 essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.
-
-
History demands the official story be corrected
- By David C. on 12-05-21
By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others
-
The Color of Law
- A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
- By: Richard Rothstein
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation - that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, he incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation - the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments - that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
-
-
Better suited to print than audio
- By ProfGolf on 02-04-18
-
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
- By: Walter Rodney, Angela Y. Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.
-
-
A Superb must read for everyone
- By Ronald on 04-16-19
By: Walter Rodney, and others
-
Allow Me to Retort
- A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution
- By: Elie Mystal
- Narrated by: Elie Mystal
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is an easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them. Mystal explains how to protect the rights of women and people of color instead of cowering to the absolutism of gun owners and bigots. He explains the legal way to stop everything from police brutality to political gerrymandering, just by changing a few judges and justices. He strips out all of the fancy jargon conservatives like to hide behind and lays bare the truth of their project to keep America forever tethered to its slaveholding past.
-
-
Informative and Entertaining
- By Kindle Customer on 03-06-22
By: Elie Mystal
-
The New Jim Crow
- Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition
- By: Michelle Alexander
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
-
-
Justice denied
- By Sam Motes on 09-24-14
-
Policing the Black Man
- Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment
- By: Angela J. Davis - editor
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Policing the Black Man explores and critiques the many ways the criminal justice system impacts the lives of African American boys and men at every stage of the criminal process, from arrest through sentencing. Essays range from an explication of the historical roots of racism in the criminal justice system to an examination of modern-day police killings of unarmed black men.
-
-
A Book Every Young White Male Should Read
- By danielwead on 08-04-17
-
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
- Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
- By: Angela Y. Davis
- Narrated by: Angela Davis, Coleen Marlo
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of Black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles - from the Black freedom movement to the South African antiapartheid movement.
-
-
Injustice anywhere is Injustice everywhere
- By Jarucia Jaycox on 05-05-17
By: Angela Y. Davis
-
Until We Reckon
- Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair
- By: Danielle Sered
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although over half the people incarcerated in America today have committed violent offenses, the focus of reformers has been almost entirely on nonviolent and drug offenses. Danielle Sered's brilliant and groundbreaking Until We Reckon steers directly and unapologetically into the question of violence, offering approaches that will help end mass incarceration and increase safety.
-
-
Simply amazing...
- By Chas Moore on 02-06-20
By: Danielle Sered
-
Prison by Any Other Name
- The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms
- By: Maya Schenwar, Victoria Law, Michelle Alexander - foreword
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data-driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost-effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But many of these so-called reforms actually widen the net, weaving in new strands of punishment and control, and bringing new populations, who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment, under physical control by the state.
-
-
I would give this book 6 stars out of 5.
- By Happy on 11-28-20
By: Maya Schenwar, and others
-
Talking to Strangers
- What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.
-
-
Disappointing
- By GMbienlire on 10-26-19
By: Malcolm Gladwell
-
Mutual Aid
- Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)
- By: Dean Spade
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid, describes how mutual aid is a crucial part of powerful movements for social justice, and offers concrete tools for organizing, such as how to work in groups, how to foster a collective decision-making process, how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal with burnout.
-
-
A Must Read!
- By Howcrio on 04-18-22
By: Dean Spade
-
Washington Bullets
- A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations
- By: Vijay Prashad
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Washington Bullets is written in the best traditions of Marxist journalism and history-writing. It is a book of fluent stories, full of detail about US imperialism, but never letting the minutiae obscure the larger political point. It is a book that could easily have been a song of despair - a lament of lost causes; it is, after all, a roll call of butchers and assassins; of plots against people's movements and governments; of the assassinations of socialists, Marxists, communists all over the Third World by the country where liberty is a statue.
-
-
High Speed Tour through Recent History
- By OZO on 03-24-22
By: Vijay Prashad
-
The War on Normal People
- By: Andrew Yang
- Narrated by: Andrew Yang
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future - now. One recent estimate predicts 13 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next seven years - jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant.
-
-
Gave me hope!
- By Libby on 02-19-19
By: Andrew Yang
Publisher's Summary
Recent years have seen an explosion of protest against police brutality and repression. Among activists, journalists, and politicians, the conversation about how to respond and improve policing has focused on accountability, diversity, training, and community relations. Unfortunately, these reforms will not produce results, either alone or in combination. The core of the problem must be addressed: the nature of modern policing itself.
This audiobook attempts to spark public discussion by revealing the tainted origins of modern policing as a tool of social control. It shows how the expansion of police authority is inconsistent with community empowerment, social justice - even public safety. Drawing on groundbreaking research from across the world, and covering virtually every area in the increasingly broad range of police work, Alex Vitale demonstrates how law enforcement has come to exacerbate the very problems it is supposed to solve.
In contrast, there are places where the robust implementation of policing alternatives - such as legalization, restorative justice, and harm reduction - has led to a decrease in crime, spending, and injustice. The best solution to bad policing may be an end to policing.
More from the same
What listeners say about The End of Policing
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daniel A. Boyd
- 08-09-19
Preaching to the choir
Full onslaught anti policing propaganda, no room for any counterpoints.
I agree with everything in the book accept 1 or two nitpicky points.
Basic idea is that we need a new socialworker job that we'd be able to call for various "trivial" domestic issues. Get rid of military hardware at local level.
I have so many personal anecdotes of police escalating problems that they were called into solve. In all 4 cities I've lived in.
The issue is, this book offers no way to talk to people on the other side. Nothing said would persuade a cop and is dissmisve of their fears, which while I agree, statisticaly speaking are overblown are psychologically significant.
There is a huge economic angle that seems obvious and I hope someone does that book, if we get rid of the police where does that money go?
Would have loved more stats on how innefective they are beyond no one gets caught after 48hrs.
Loved the totality of the book, looking at crime in various places and the major roles of drugs/sex work etc. Highly recommend you read/listen to it.
24 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gargamont
- 06-10-20
In depth and well reasoned.
This book has become even more relevant in 2020 as protesters around the world collide with violent, racist police. The issues addressed have never been more salient and critical to our path forward.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jargon
- 08-03-20
Can this be required reading?
I believe that every American should read this book.
This country will never be okay until we can make all the atrocities listed in here a thing of the past, rather than an inescapable reality for 99% of citizens.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark Jones
- 06-20-20
I believe the author got it half right.
The first few chapters were very informative and offered a nice history and perspective of the problem. However mid-way through the book the author suggests that more government and more government spending is the solution to this government problem... SMH No I don't believe raising the minimum wage , doing more government programs, and trying to control our economy is going to fix anything. Our problem IS government overreach. Not once did he mention Dispute-Resolution Organizations or other privatized solutions to a central planning problem.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Leland
- 06-13-20
A critique which fails to examine its premises
Excels at identifying problems in policing, but fails to fully examine structural reasons these exist.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TJ
- 10-18-20
Biased
I went to this book to hear some ideas for positive police reform but instead was bombarded with very biased information and many out right inaccuracies. This is just anti police propaganda.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kurt
- 07-29-20
Sneering commentary
Long on criticism, but woefully short on realistic solutions and jumps to many sweeping conclusions not supported by its research. And the narrator just seems rude.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 07-11-20
Fails to make his case
As another reviewer said, I think most of what the author said is true. But he does not make his case in a way that would persuade anyone who does not already agree with him.
He lays out, chapter by chapter, various problems that the police are expected to solve, and then attempts to show why police either do not solve the problem or make the problem worse, either by escalating force or through corruption. And he suggests alternatives, usually in the form of deploying more social services and decriminalizing various nuisance crimes.
And all that is fine as hypotheses go, but he provides scarce data to back up his claim. Yes, he does cite some studies here and there, but he presents most of his solutions as true without studies or research. And maybe many of his proposals have not yet been studied, but every time it happens in the book, it lessens his ability to persuade those who are not already on the "defund the police" bandwagon.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mario.tamez
- 06-24-20
Terrible.
Flat out lazy about his research. Talks about things he knows nothing about and it’s just a poor attempt at remaining relevant. Stick to acting, although I’ve never seen any of his acting work.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brian M. Helman
- 05-03-22
compelling argument, but questionable facts
the author's clear lack of understanding of the Mideast situation unfortunately brings into question the conclusions of the whole book
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Mara
- 02-13-22
an alternative viewpoint on policing
Outlines the reasons why policing doesn't work, what alternatives there are and gets you to think about the role we should have police play in our society, if any.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- G. Morgan
- 06-09-20
A must read if you’re interested in justice.
Abolish the police. Like seriously, they’re feral.
I picked this up because of the riots happening in the US and the protests happening world wide in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. I knew there was problems with policing but not exactly just how deep it is, this book lays it all out wonderfully.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- James
- 12-01-19
Is it really the end?
The title of 'The End of Policing' poses quite a stark hypothetical. Is Vitale really suggesting that there should be no more police, that society would be better off if they weren't there at all? The actual argument isn't quite as radical as the provocative title, though it is still profound in its implications and sweeping in its scope. Vitale is not saying that there is no legitimate function whatsoever to the police, but instead that police have been asked to perform social functions far beyond the scope of their expertise and the suitability of their methods, filling the gaps left by neglect of non-punitive social programs, and resulting in profound systemic injustices. Vitale takes a very broad-ranging view of his subject, frequently indulging in what could uncharitably be called tangents, concerning matters that are not narrowly related to policing—homelessness, mental health, sex work, immigration policy, etc—but give some view of how policing influences and is influenced by larger societal structures. These things are all connected, and the argument is necessarily broad, so the eclecticism is arguably justified. Vitale's recommendations are as sweeping as his diagnosis, basically amounting to the pursuit of the progressive political project in all its various facets, in addition to the incremental reforms that are often proposed (which he views as insufficient on their own). There are some quick solutions offered, like the appointment of dedicated prosecutors for police abuses, but Vitale recognises that structural problems can only be solved with structural change, and that's no easy fix.
All of this will probably come without much surprise to anyone with more than a passing interest in the subject, so on that front this book probably serves more as a place to round up the various arguments for reference purposes rather than as a place to learn new arguments. What I found the most novel were the historical background sections, which were filled with jaw-dropping details about the founding and early histories of police forces like the London Metropolitan Police and the Pennsylvania State Police (the former seems to have had its roots in oppression of the Irish, while the latter was explicitly formed to break strikes). The revelations about early policing cast modern policing in a very harsh light and made me all the more receptive to Vitale's criticisms.
It is clear that there is a slant to this book, and it probably elides many rebuttals that would be offered by police apologists, but Vitale makes a very articulate and forceful case, and if he's in any way correct then the urgency of reform cannot be overstated.
3 people found this helpful