Conclusion: Rethinking police abuse in contemporary democracies

Abstract

In the concluding chapter, Bonner returns to the central argument of the book: police abuse changes our conceptual and structural understanding of democracy. She draws together the findings from the preceding chapters to reexamine the concepts of citizenship, accountability, and socioeconomic (in)equality. She offers suggestions for possible ways forward, such as more research on: police discretion and the appropriate boundaries needed to protect the democratic inclusion and rights of all citizens; how civil society organizations can be integrated into police reform projects without losing their strengths as agonistic and independent actors; and, the types of political economies that encourage lower levels of police violence. Such studies, the chapter argues, are important to improving the quality of democracy globally and impeding its decline.