Handcuffed by Malcolm Sparrow

Handcuffed by Malcolm Sparrow addresses a high interest topic as the news is obviously filled with stories about Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown and many others.  Given a choice for research, our students have recently been requesting to explore topics like racial profiling, police actions and use of body cameras. The Brookings Institution’s Handcuffed attempts to offer a well-credentialed and somewhat more balanced and academic view on this subject as compared to that offered by the sensationalizing media.  To a large extent, Handcuffed succeeds – after all, it is based on a collaboration between the National Institute of Justice and the Program on Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School.  Sparrow describes what he calls “the very best and very worst of police conduct,” noting the generally universal praise for law enforcement involved with the search and capture of the Boston Marathon bomber in 2013 in addition to the cases mentioned above. 

However, the book also has a weakness in that it is somewhat dated relative to this “in the headlines” topic.  The selections are based on papers written (some in 2012) over the last few years and, for example, it was not possible to update references to current situations like the decision about indictments in the Tamir Rice case. Also, Sparrow references the database on police shootings that was compiled by The Washington Post staff, but was apparently too early to note that they won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage.  He does a strong job of summarizing the issues, noting the quest for answers to what he calls “some very basic questions:

• Do police regularly abuse their powers and use excessive force?
• How widespread is such abuse?
• How much is it targeted on minority and poor communities?
• Why can police not be held accountable?”

Sparrow also includes a section on reform, talking, for example, about topics like the benefits and risks of moving from a public force to a private security apparatus. Overall, Handcuffed is a valiant attempt to discuss the “18,000 law enforcement agencies that operate in America,” but in striving to incorporate impartial, published papers, Handcuffed falls a bit short in terms of timeliness, even though it does include an extensive set of notes and useful index for our student researchers.