Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable

A groundbreaking examination of the intricate legal framework that prevents accountability for police misconduct, from one of the country's leading scholars on policing
In recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many other innocent Black people have brought much-needed attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct. Yet it remains nearly impossible to hold police accountable for abuses of power--the decisions of the Supreme Court, state and local governments, and policymakers have, over decades, made the police all but untouchable. In Shielded, UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz lays bare the barriers that prevent people from obtaining justice against the police, exposing the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs, cutting across race, gender, criminal history, tax bracket, and zip code. The product of more than two decades of advocacy and research, Shielded is a groundbreaking investigation into why civil rights litigation so rarely leads to justice or prevents future police misconduct. Weaving powerful true stories of people seeking restitution for violated rights with insightful analyses about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants, she paints a compelling picture of the human cost of our failing criminal justice system, bringing clarity to a problem that is widely known but little understood. Shielded is a masterful work of immediate and enduring consequence, revealing what tragically familiar calls for justice truly entail.