The Groundwork Guides provide an overview of key contemporary political and social issues. Engaging, concise and clearly written, these books tackle pressing and sometimes controversial topics, offering both a lively introduction to the subject and a strong point of view. "While law is usually regarded as the civilized, nonviolent way to deal with harms and conflicts, violence is integral to law. Police are, after all, allowed to handcuff, manhandle, Taser and even sometimes kill people, and courts of law can and do confine people to prison and even, in some jurisdictions, order that they be killed. Many of the legal problems and issues that concern ordinary citizens have to do not with what law says or with the niceties of definitions of law, but with how laws are enforced, against whom and with what effects." In The Force of Law, award-winning criminologist Mariana Valverde makes clear that "proper" law is not easily distinguished from the rules imposed by various bodies of armed men. Worldwide, private security guards often act like police, but they serve their private clients, not the public at large. And publicly paid police officers spend much of their time managing information for other bureaucracies instead of actually fighting crime or arresting criminals.

Book jacket.