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Gotham's War within a War: Policing and the Birth of Law-and-Order Liberalism in World War II-Era New York City
Abstract
A surprising history unfolded in New Deal– and World War II–era New York City under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, members of the NYPD had worked to enforce partisan political power rather than focus on crime. That changed when La Guardia took office in 1934 and shifted the city's priorities toward liberal reform. La Guardia's approach to low-level policing anticipated later trends in law enforcement, including "broken windows" theory and "stop and frisk" policy. Police officers worked to preserve urban order by controlling vice, including juvenile delinquency, prostitution, gambling, and the "disorderly" establishments that officials believed housed these activities. This mode of policing was central to La Guardia's influential vision of urban governance, but it was met with resistance from the Black New Yorkers, youth, and working-class women it primarily targeted. The mobilization for World War II introduced new opportunities for the NYPD to intensify policing and criminalize these groups with federal support. In the 1930s these communities were framed as perils to urban order; during the militarized war years, they became a supposed threat to national security itself. Emily M. Brooks recasts the evolution of urban policing by revealing that the rise of law-and-order liberalism was inseparable from the surveillance, militarism, and nationalism of war.
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In the citing paper
“In New York, the police power expanded because of World War I-era legislation that authorized the health department to examine men and women suspected or accused of having a sexually transmitted disease.”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“This law reinforced beliefs that prostitution was a threat to the nation's war effort, and the NYPD expanded its antiprostitution policing (Brooks 2023, pp. 20-21).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“Nothing led to the growth of the police power like concern for prostitution during wartime, something that often fell disproportionately on Black women.”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“Antiprostitution policing once again fell disproportionately on Black women.”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“Arrests for juvenile delinquency increased by 33 percent between 1941 and 1943 (Brooks 2023, p. 105).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“In Bedford-Stuyvesant, for instance, White residents raised concerns about Black delinquents and criminality in hopes of expanding the police presence there.”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“Rather, for La Guardia and other reformers, a large and powerful police department was a key component of a safe and orderly city (Brooks 2023;King 2024).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“After a grand jury report and investigation, Valentine placed 133 additional police officers in the neighborhood (Brooks 2023, p. 113).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“World War II was a turning point in policing, creating a series of chalenges including manpower shortages, new training and managerial regimes, and fears about crime and delinquency during the war (Schrader 2021;Brooks 2023).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“Following the Wickersham Commission's revelations about the third degree ( Johnson 2003), for instance, many urban police departments, especially in New York, embarked on what some historians have called a liberal law-and-order approach to law enforcement (Brooks 2023).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“Valentine and La Guardia framed the focus on sexual policing as part of the war effort and protection of service members while using the war to promote their vision of order and morality more broadly (Brooks 2023, p. 70).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
In the citing paper
“These efforts culminated in strengthening of the Wayward Minor Law in 1945, which set the stage for strengthened policing of the juvenile delinquency crisis in the 1950s (Suddler 2019;Brooks 2023).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Brooks 2023
Citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States
Felker-Kantor, M. (2024) · Crime and Justice · doi:10.1086/732194 · Cited by 3
Metadata
- Authors
- Brooks, E. M.
- Affiliations
- City University of New York (US)
- Corresponding author
- Brooks, Emily M.
- ORCID
- Brooks, Emily M.
- Published
- 2023-10-31
- OpenAlex
- W4406250405
- Cited by
- 2
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1
- FWCI
- 10.97
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime, Deviance, and Social Control
- Keywords
- Fiorello La Guardia, New York City Police Department, urban policing, New Deal era, World War II mobilization, juvenile delinquency, prostitution, gambling, police militarization, surveillance, criminalization, urban order, New York City history
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Gotham's War within a War: Policing and the Birth of Law-and-Order Liberalism in World War II-Era New York City. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469676593.001.0001
- The paper
- Brooks, E. M. (2023). Gotham's War within a War: Policing and the Birth of Law-and-Order Liberalism in World War II-Era New York City. https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469676593.001.0001
