The Policing Machine

“A brilliant analysis of the mechanisms the NYPD uses to cultivate political power. If Skogan and Hartnett’s Community Policing, Chicago Style was the must-read book on neighborhood policing of the twentieth century, I predict Cheng’s contribution will be the must-read book on the topic of the twenty-first."  -- Tracey Meares, Yale University
“The Policing Machine shows that the public acceptance of police is not an inevitability created by lack of alternatives for public safety, but the product of a complex apparatus of consent and coercion that helps constitute the very public police purport to serve and protect.” -- Jonathan Simon, UC Berkeley
"The Policing Machine is the most important study of policing I’ve ever read. It applies a crucial relational and institutional analysis of community policing in New York City from an independent perspective. Cheng’s emphasis on de-monopolizing policing’s role in public safety offers a useful way forward for anyone seeking to bring serious change to city approaches to public safety." -- Robert Vargas, University of Chicago
"This title about police departments will appeal to concerned citizens and policy makers." * Library Journal *
"A hard-hitting exposé of the organizational structures and political maneuvering that thwart police reform." * Kirkus Reviews *
"Cheng’s book is a sharp and well-documented attempt to unveil the specific mechanisms by which the NYPD selects local input that is functional to its organisational purposes." * LSE Review of Books *
"A comprehensive illustration of the mechanisms that the NYPD uses to cultivate political power." * Punishment & Society *
"The Policing Machine is a well-organized, clearly written, and compelling study that should change how urban and political sociologists think about political mobilization, civic participation and association, and the consequences of policing for American society. Cheng shows that many of the plaudits that police receive, including active endorsements for a job well done and the appearance of buy-in through participation in dialogue, are confections, manufactured for public approbation. This raises important questions about the institutional legitimacy of one of the most well-resourced agencies of local governance in the country." * American Journal of Sociology *
"In The Policing Machine: Enforcement, Endorsements, and the Illusion of Public Input, Cheng expands our understanding of how police resist change. Cheng’s research focuses on the NYPD and utilizes ethnographic data, interviews, and public records collected over the course of 18 months of fieldwork. Scholars have noted how police function as political actors through police unions and groups like the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) who work to lobby on behalf of police and influence electoral politics. Cheng takes a different approach by centering police as key local political actors and reveals the mechanisms through which the police maintain legitimacy and avoid making changes even in cases where there is significant pressure from both above and below." * Sociology of Race and Ethnicity *
"By studying the Policing Machine from the outside, Cheng brings into sharp focus this machinery for processing raw, polarized public input into a facade of public support for police." * Contemporary Sociology *
"For its wide-ranging and pioneering contributions, The Policing Machine should be mandatory reading for activists and city officials, as well as scholars studying cities, law, organizations, politics, and punishment." * Law & Society Review *