In this episode, we have two updates from prisoners in California on their conditions amidst the COVID-19 crisis. Afterwards, we speak with Max Felker-Kantor, historian and professor at Ball State University. Felker-Kantor’s particular focus of study is policing and anti-police violence post WWII. He’s been on Kite Line before, talking about the history of policing…
Read MoreThe Federal government rolled out the weed and seed program in the early 1990s in response to a new wave of urban uprisings. It placed social services under police control, so that cops could first “weed,” (i.e. remove undesirable elements) and then “seed” by distributing resources, following a classic model of counter-insurgency. Two decades were…
Read MoreThis week, we air the first of two episodes tracking the rise of police racism and militarization in Los Angeles, from the Watts Uprising of 1965 to the 1992 L.A. Riots after Rodney King’s beating. Max Felker-Kantor, author of the book, Policing Los Angeles, walks us through the changes in policing, as well as the…
Read MoreIn this interview, Elizabeth Hinton sketches the relationship between the civil rights movement, urban uprisings and the beginning of the “War on Crime,” with a focus on the Harlem Riot of 1964, and the 1965 Watts Rebellion, which was triggered by police brutality and became a key law-and-order talking point. She then moves through a…
Read More