Why Would Feminists Trust the Police: A tangled history of resistance and complicity

(Paperback)

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The abduction and murder of Sarah Everard by London Met officer Wayne Couzens and the sharing photos of the bodies of murdered sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry by constables revealed something rotten about policing in Britain. Every week it seems there is a fresh scandal involving abhorrent, racist, misogynist behaviour by serving officers. Yet, these are the very people that women are supposed to seek help from when they face violence. And many feminists continue to hope that the criminal justice system can be used to make women safe: fighting for stronger laws and longer sentences for those who harm them. Why Would Feminist Trust the Police traces the history of British feminisms alliances and struggles with the law and its enforcers, to ask: how did feminists come to rely on the police to make them safe And how can we change course Drawing on the history of Black British feminism and police and prison abolition, Leah Cowan issues a corrective: the police are not feminists, and they will not bring us safety.

Reviews

Praise for Border Nation * : *
Powerful -- Nikesh Shukla, editor of The Good Immigrant
[a] meticulous and compassionate manifesto -- Juno Mac, co-author of Revolting Prostitutes
A fantastically succinct primer -- Gracie Mae Bradley, co-author of Against Borders
A powerful indictment -- Priyamvada Gopal, author of Insurgent Empire

Author Bio

Leah Cowan is a writer and editor. She is the former Politics Editor at gal-dem, an online magazine and media platform run by women and non-binary people of colour. Leah also works at Project 17, an advice centre for migrant families who have No Recourse to Public Funds and are facing homelessness and destitution. Leah has written for publications including Vice UK, Huck, DOPE magazine, and the Guardian and in 2018 delivered a TEDxTalk presenting an intersectional analysis of emotional labour. Leah speaks and lectures, including for UN Women, in the House of Commons, at the Trades Union Congress, and at Queen Mary University of London. Her first book, BORDER NATION, breaking down the borders of migration, was published in 2021.