Charged

How the Police Try to Suppress Protest

Matt Foot, Morag Livingstone

$39.99

Hardback

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English

Verso Books
02 August 2022

Social issues & processes; Public administration; Pressure groups & lobbying; Demonstrations & protest movements

Charged is an essential investigation into the role of policing protest in Britain today. As the UK governments try to suppress all forms of dissent, in their pursuit of more control, how do the police manage crowds, provoke violence and even break the law?

The book tells the conflicted history of the relationship between the police and protesters. The landscape of how police deal with protest changed following criticism of the police during the 1981 Brixton riots. New military-style tactics were sanctioned by the Thatcher government, in secret. Over the next forty years those protesting against racism, unfair job losses, draconian laws, or for environmental protection were subject to brutal tactics. In the aftermath, media attention denigrates protesters while the police are praised and continue to act with impunity.

Looking through these moments of conflict widens our understanding of policing public order to reveal the true character of the state. Since the 1980s successive governments, from Thatcher to Johnson, covertly plot to suppress protests, using standardised aggressive tactics - from batons to horse charges to kettling. Through undisclosed documents and eyewitness accounts the authors reveal organised police violence against miners at Orgreave, print workers at Warrington, anti poll tax campaigners, student protestors and Black Lives Matter. The voices of protesters however have been undeterred.

By: Matt Foot, Morag Livingstone
Imprint: Verso Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 27mm
Weight: 413g
ISBN: 9781839762499
ISBN 10: 1839762497
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 02 August 2022
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Matt Foot is a Criminal Defence Solicitor, he specialises in representing protestors and victims of miscarriages of justice. As a campaigning lawyer he co-founded Justice Alliance to protect legal aid and Asbo Concern. He has also written in the Guardian and the London Review of Books. Morag Livingstone is an award winning documentary filmmaker, writer and internationally published author. She is co-author of two bestselling narrative non-fiction books Hackney Child and Tainted Love. She is also a Lecturer and Tutor in photojournalism, moving image and storytelling.

Reviews for Charged: How the Police Try to Suppress Protest

Brilliantly readable, it carries you with it every step of the way. One forgets how frightening authority is and the detail on police behaviour is dreadfully shocking and distressing. It never assumes what you might believe or what you might already know and at the end leaves the reader in no doubt as to what has happened in this country. -Emma Thompson, actor and activist Matt Foot and Morag Livingstone have carefully documented the organised violence and secret police tactics used to attack trade unionists and others who have exercised their right to protest in Britain since the early 1980s. They uncover the way that successive Home secretaries and chief police officers have covertly worked together, deploying and legalising draconian tactics to defend vested interests from active legitimate dissent. If you want to know the dark history that has led us to the current police bill and to understand how the powers it contains would be used, I recommend that you read this book. -Sharon Graham, Unite the union general secretary