BOOK: The Rise of the Warrior Cop

From Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton to Donald Trump every sitting president for the last 50 years, Republican or Democrat, has militarized America's police force.  In Rise of the Warrior Cop author Radley Balko asks, "How did we evolve from a country whose founding statesmen were adamant about the dangers of armed, standing government forces—a country that enshrined the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights and revered and protected the age-old notion that the home is a place of privacy and sanctuary—to a country where it has become acceptable for armed government agents dressed in battle garb to storm private homes in the middle of the night, not to apprehend violent fugitives or thwart terrorist attacks but to enforce laws against nonviolent, consensual activities?"

MOVIE: Peace Officer

What if you witnessed the SWAT team that you established as sheriff kill your son-in-law? Peace Officer follows former Utah sheriff William "Dub" Lawrence using his 45-years as a police officer to privately investigate the killing of his son-in-law, Brian Wood. Wood was killed in 2008 after a muddled standoff with police.

BOOK: The Black and the Blue

For those wondering if the issue with policing is a couple of bad officers or if it is the system, 28-year law enforcement veteran Matthew Horace unequivocally paints a picture of a broken system in his memoir The Black and the Blue. Before critiquing the system, Horace unequivocally says he is a cop while also being unequivocally a black man. He has lived on both sides of a police gun.

PODCAST: Pastors on Policing

From body cams to why pastors should have a conversation about policing to qualified immunity to the militarization of the police pastors Louis Love and Thabiti Anyabwile engage in a wide range of topics related to policing in America. Engaging, thought provoking and informative. Start at 5:45 to get to the conversation.

PODCAST: Policing with Chief Allen Banks

In a sincere, hopeful conversation Round Rock (Texas) police chief Allen Banks talks about his implementation of community policing in Round Rock, why the police shouldn't be the first responders for everything, policing training, diversity in police hiring, how to create equitable and safe communities and much more. If you want to know how a community is changing policing right now, then this is the podcast for you.

BOOK: The End of Policing

From rising homelessness that the police are tasked to deal with to shootings of both minorities and police officers to endless mental health issues involving both police officers and the population American police are simply expected to do too much.  Author Alex Vitale argues that the structure of American policing, and the U.S. legal system, protects the interests of those in power and/or with money and needs to be dismantled.  Simply put, Americans need to rethink the mission of the police and how we police those within the borders of the United States.

BOOK: Punished – Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys

Former gang member Victor Rios grew up in the ghetto of Oakland, California so he knows the realities of Black and Latino males growing up in a low-income neighborhood, but this is not his story. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys is based on Rios' Ph.D. thesis at Berkeley that he penned after spending three years following 40 Black and Latino males in Oakland.