To get a feel for the state of U.S. policing, one need only look at images of heavily armed Boston police in armored BearCats swarming their sheltered-in-place city during the 2013 bomber manhunt. Or watch 2014 footage of police in Ferguson, Mo., lined up in SWAT body armor and riot helmets, brandishing assault rifles and flash-bang grenades behind military MRAP vehicles to face off against citizens. How did Andy Griffith turn into Sylvester Stallone? In Unwarranted, a measured, commonsense, sometimes even breezy study of current policing, New York University School of Law professor and noted constitutional law pundit Barry Friedman (The Will of the People) reminds us: "The authority to use force on citizens and to conduct surveillance of them... are the most awesome powers we grant any public servants.... The real problem with policing is not the police; it is us."
Frightening as Unwarranted sometimes is, Friedman's analysis is not without hope and concrete suggestions. He puts much of the burden on courts to take a firmer stand prohibiting police from bending the Constitution without specific authorization from legislatures. Elected representatives also need to step up and draft laws that directly outline the allowed rules for enforcement rather than turn these decisions over to appointed agencies. The police must be more transparent and willing to take direction from citizens. Unwarranted is an accessible and important book at a time when a police force armed to the teeth and a vast government surveillance network have become the norm. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.