After an informative "Introduction" that outlines changes in policing and criminal justice institutions during the 1960s and 1970s, the seven remaining sections are divided into four general topics. Sections II and III provide an extensive historical analysis of the origins and role of the police in the U.S., beginning with the crudest forms of policing -- such as slave patrols and the watch system -- and tracing their development into the modern urban department. Although the form of policing has changed considerably over time, depending on changes in the mode of production from an agricultural to industrial economy, the class control functions of the police in capitalist society have always remained paramount. The book focuses especially on the movement to modernize and professionalize the police during the Progressive Era, since it was during this period that the state apparatus was expanded and became more sophisticated. Next is an overview of developments in policing through the 1960s and a more detailed analysis of the Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which increasingly became the major source of subsidies and planning for the criminal justice system. This part of the book concludes with information about and an analysis of militancy within police departments, its roots and contemporary form, especially focusing on its implications for understanding the internal dynamics of the police apparatus.

The major part of the book, sections IV, V, and VI, analyzes recent strategies and developments within the modern police system. Sections IV and V examine the major ideological and strategic directions that city police forces have been taking since the 1960s, focusing on the development of new technologies and Paramilitary police units, and the rise of the “police-industrial” complex on the one hand, and on the other the emergence of new strategies of community pacification. These sections include a closer look at specific aspects of the iron fist (such as SWAT and political surveillance) and the velvet glove (such as women police and team policing). Section VI examines two aspects of the continuing expansion and diversification of the repressive apparatus -- first, the export of U.S. police training and techniques to repressive regimes, especially in the Third World, in an effort to achieve political stability for multinational corporations, and second, the booming business in private police at home.

Section VII examines developments in the police, especially the impact of the fiscal crisis, summarizes the experience of organizations and popular movements in their struggles against the police (including a critique of the limitations of liberal reformism), and discusses the implications for organizing. The last section of the book contains an extensive bibliography, listing books, journals, and other materials, as well as a research guide to government documents and other sources of information. Section VIII also includes select documents and a list of organizations working against police repression at that time.