Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face (Paperback)

~ (Author), Wes Denham (Author)
Key Phrases: electronic plantation, crook profile, car creds, United States, Uncle Dale's Golden Rule, South Beach (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Carson has been both a cop and a criminal defense attorney. Here, he puts his years of experience into a "how-not-to" book. He feels that most people who get arrested aren't the worst criminals; they are just the most "clueless"—small-time offenders who make bad decisions and end up in what he calls the "electronic plantation." Now that computers make it ever so easy to track people, getting arrested, even if you're not ultimately convicted, can and will come back to haunt you. Carson has three golden rules: "If cops can't see you, they can't arrest you," "Keep your dope at home," and "Give cops your name and basic info, then shut the f*@# up!" While the book read straight through may seem a little repetitive, it ultimately does come back to one of these three rules, which are imparted with examples and behavior charts. Carson uses a blunt style to make these points, but it's a style that is sure to hit home with his target audience—the underclass. And he does make it plain that while there are many middle-class and white-collar criminals, the police tend to focus their patrols in bad neighborhoods. Those most likely to be in situations where they or those they know might get arrested will get the most out of this book, but even readers in more lofty areas with an interest in law enforcement could find much to discuss.—Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

This essential “how not to” guide explains how to act and what to say in the presence of police to minimize the chances of being arrested and to avoid add-on charges—which can often lead to permanent disqualification from jobs, financing, and education. Citizens can learn how to avoid arrest both on the street and when pulled over in a vehicle and are alerted to basic tricks cops use to get people to incriminate themselves. Sprinkled with absurdity and humor, this urgent, eye-opening book is a guide to criminal justice for all Americans.

See all Editorial Reviews

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Product Details Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: Chicago Review Press (January 1, 2007) Language: English ISBN-10: 1556526377 ISBN-13: 978-1556526374 Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,537 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books) Popular in these categories: (What's this?) #18 in  Books > Professional & Technical > Law > Criminal Law > Law Enforcement #21 in  Books > Nonfiction > Crime & Criminals > Law Enforcement #36 in  Books > Nonfiction > Law > Practical Guides

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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
electronic plantation, crook profile, car creds, keep your dope, clueless types, justice plantation, clueless people, less clueless, felony bust, psychological contest, court phone, sausage grinder, proactive policing, petty offenders, basic info, real bad guys

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Uncle Dale's Golden Rule, South Beach, Name Address, New York, Nine-Ball Machine, Police Dept, Ted Bundy, Wayne Williams, World Wide Web, Attorney Telephone, Dirty Harry, Fred Smith, Main Street, Miami Springs, Temple Pastor

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	67% buy the item featured on this page: Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face 4.7 out of 5 stars (15) $10.17
	17% buy You & the Police! 4.4 out of 5 stars (34) $10.88
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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews 5 star:  (12) 4 star:  (2) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.7 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 46 of 48 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars A cops-eye view of the "Terry" stop., January 22, 2007 By  The Dilettante "Dilly!" - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    Amazon Verified Purchase I almost cannot believe this book was written by a cop. If Hunter S. Thompson were not dead before the publication date, I would swear this was ghost-written. When he advises the reader to consider SOILING his or her PANTS to avoid being taken into custody, I can't vouch for the quality of the advice, but I have to admire the author's balls. Other bits of advice are undoubtably real gems; when the author recommends to always ask the cop for a Notice to Appear in court (or "NOA" - this is to be attempted before resorting to the pant-pooping) he is dispensing uncommon practical wisdom. His discussion of racial profiling, and direct advice to young black and hispanic men, is jaw-droppingly frank. Not unlike Thucydides, the author says, in effect: "Let us have no talk of just and unjust." The bulk of this book is not unlike the various "Know Your Rights" resources published by groups like the ACLU, but it is vastly better. Those other resources give sound advice in the form of "rules," but it is abstracted from 4th and 5th Amendment case law. The truth is that the justice system exists primarily in the cracks between the laws - in the form of police and prosecutorial discretion. The subjective aspects of an encounter with the police - namely police incentives and psychology - are at least as important to your outcome as the positive law is. Any student of the Supreme Court can tell you what to do in a police encounter (e.g. "shut up"), but without any understanding of why you are doing it, it may be VERY difficult advice to follow. Following the old adage "know your enemy in order to defeat him," the author shows you what a police encounter looks like from the cop's perspective. Police, the author emphasizes, are NOT "just people" - they are "Great White sharks" (his words) trained to churn as many arrests and seizures as possible. But -like sharks- they share certain natural tendencies that make them predictable, (to a limited extent) manipulable, and (above all) avoidable. Another way it differs from the ACLU brand of rights books and videos is in its urgency. The author argues that, in the electronic panopticon that is today's justice system, an arrest is effectively as damning as a conviction. Computer databases mean that today, not just your penal interests, but also your future employment and your credit can be ruined by an arrest. This is why you - the citizen - must read this book. Not even the best attorney can get you "un-arrested" - you must help yourself by staying free in the first place. That said, I think the author overstates this point a bit. The class of the offense and your age at the time still matter a great deal. Not even the CIA can afford to exclude everyone with a blemish on their record. Moreover, the panopticon is not really all that efficient (yet). If your name is "Joe Smith," from "Los Angeles," your legibility to the system is still pretty minimal. Carson limits his advice to those bits helpful to the "clueless" petty criminal - the people most likely to be arrested in a random police encounter. This book tells you only how to navigate what the law calls a "Terry" stop. He's not interested in helping dangerous and/or professional criminals - who are in any event much more likely to be arrested pursuant to a warrant of some sort. (If your house is going to be raided, get a book on prisons, because this won't be of much help.) This brings us to the author's very interesting editorial thesis: namely, that economics keeps petty offenses criminal. On this account, simple possession of marijuana remains a criminal offense primarily because courts and cops need something to do while they are between rapists and murderers. Petty crime is the daily bread of the justice system. This is a very interesting hypothesis, and while it probably deserves a more scholarly treatment than it recieves here (any U of Chicago grad students in the room?), it seems to me intuitively correct. This beast must eat a steady diet of petty offenders so that it's still in shape when we really need it. But this obviously sucks for the petty offenders (who, when you think about it, are really doing a public service) and Carson is interested in teaching them how to avoid the beast's jaws. Sadly, the few people who really need this book are unlikely to have the foresight to read it. But, if you are at risk of being arrested this book is for you. If you look weird, are a young male, belong to a racial minority group, travel on foot, drive after midnight, use illegal drugs, have a prior record, or have friends or family who do any of the above, this book is worth taking a look at. Also highly recommended for people who work in the CJ system (except cops, who know this stuff). 25 of 26 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Rules for not being arrested, March 23, 2007 By  John - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    This is a very good book about how not to get arrested. To summarize the main themes of the book, on how not to get arrested: - Don't carry guns in your vehicle - Don't have drugs in your vehicle - Don't mouth off to cops (actually, shut up when around them) - Never, ever touch a cop or physically invade his space, etc. - If a cop sees you, just keep doing what you were doing before he saw you (i.e., the police look for people who change their behavior around the police suddenly). The entire book is basically variations on those themes. His basic point is that the "clueless" get arrested, because they do one or more of the above. One main message of this book is "if they can't see you, they can't arrest you". Think about it. Who gets arrested ? The guy who is highly visible to police. The white collar criminal, operating behind closed doors is just not visible. The hurdle of a warrant to search a private home in the U.S. is massive. But the hurdle to stop and search a vehicle is not great at all. For that reason, the people who get arrested in the U.S. are people who do stupid stuff in their car (transport guns, transport drugs, get an attitude when stopped, physically touch the officer, etc. 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars An Esssential "How To "Book, January 26, 2008 By  Sandor J. Woren "Freedom Fighter" (Glendale, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    Amazon Verified Purchase Of the How To" books, this one may be the most important one that you will every read. Author Dale C. Carson is a former Florida street cop and FBI agent. He is presently a practicing criminal defense attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. As such, he is in a perfect position to reveal the brutal truth about how police work, their methods, dirty tricks, and motivations. He stresses that cops do not receive promotions or accolades for keeping the peace, or resolving disputes by negotiation, but are evaluated and promoted strictly on the number of citations issued and arrests made, especially felony arrests. He goes on go to explain how easy it is for *anyone* to get arrested, a subtitle of the book. Most non-criminal "upstanding" citizens" can inadvertently become caught up in the criminal justice "plantation," to use a word coined in the book. Arrest records can have serious consequences, even if the charges are subsequently dismissed, not pressed, or you are acquitted. Such an arrest will doom you (especially young people) to a lifetime of low paid jobs, since many employers will not hire anybody with an arrest record, regardless of the judicial outcome or merit of the arrest. This is particularly dangerous in the age of electronic information, where records can last indefinitely. Before the computer age, written records often got lost with age. Not so now. So the only practical approach is a defensive/preventive/proactive one. Sadly, most people with not read this book until it is too late, if at all. The "clueless" people, who don't even understand the basics of the system, but are either petty criminals or non-criminals, because in their addition to their lack of ability to keep court dates (they do not own or do not use calendars or alarm clocks), frequently turn minor charges to major ones by failure to appear and other add-on charges. Probably most of them are not even literate enough to understand the simple advice in the book. This book explains how to keep from being sucked into the system. Once you are, it will be very expensive to get out, if it is possible at all. Numerous parasites in the criminal justice system, including cops, lawyers, prosecutors, jailers, social workers, psychologists, have a big interest in perpetuating the system. The most important battle to be won is for custody of your body - remember, cops are visually oriented predators, whose main motivation is to arrest you and take custody of your body. Buy this book BEFORE you get sucked into the system, and save a lot of money and heartache. As noted by the author, if you are a real, habitual, or big time criminal, this book will not be of much use to you - you will eventually be residing at the "Graybar Hotel" sooner or later. This book, however, is a must read for the non-criminal, petty criminal, or "victimless" criminal, or just for anybody that is naive about a dangerous, unforgiving system, in which ANYONE can inadvertently be caught up in for a momentary lapse of judgment.		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 3.0 out of 5 stars Lucy from CA The advice is useful, but the tone is uhh...pretty condescending towards women. Carson (the writer) assumes that the reader is male throughout the entire book, refers to women as... Read more Published 1 day ago by L. Zhang 4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant until the end... This book is brilliant until near the end. The author's advice to fill in empty spaces of your vehicle with spray-in foam is just plain silly. Read more Published 4 days ago by left coaster 5.0 out of 5 stars Every American Adult and Child Should Read This Book Every American adult and child should read this book! Get it. Read it. Let your children read it. Give copies to everyone you care about. Read more Published 2 months ago by WILLIAM MCLEAN 5.0 out of 5 stars A primer on the justice industry in america We live in a police state. Digest that. Suppress your need to think you are protected by provisions in the Bill of Rights of the american constitution, that cops themselves obey... Read more Published 2 months ago by Ellie 5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for EVERYONE!! I read this book and was both shocked, ticked and, well, amazed. A lot was just plain common sense. But a lot I would have never imagined. Read more Published 18 months ago by W. Bittle 5.0 out of 5 stars They're not here to help This is an essential guide for everyone--it doesn't matter what your previous encounters with law enforcement have been. Read more Published 19 months ago by Adam Skogen 5.0 out of 5 stars A Book Everyone Should Have This is an important book for everyone. It really shows how workings of the justice system are very much different than commonly supposed. Read more Published 22 months ago by Warner Mach 5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, except for one thing... This is a tremendous book and is worth every penny because the people it will save from jail are not the true criminals (who ought to be there because that protects the rest of... Read more Published 22 months ago by Joseph Stevano 5.0 out of 5 stars Worth it's weight in gold, LITERALLY! This book gets the strongest possible recommendation of any book I have ever reviewed! I believe it is quite literally worth it's weight in gold, because knowing the... Read more Published on December 6, 2007 by Robert G. Brown 5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just for the Clueless There's more to the book than the other reviewers are acknowledging. The advice on what to do is very specific and detailed, and as a person who has had some professional... Read more Published on September 30, 2007 by Robert A. Yourell Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556526377
• ISBN-13: 978-1556526374
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,537 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #18 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Law > Criminal Law > Law Enforcement
  #21 in	Books > Nonfiction > Crime & Criminals > Law Enforcement
  #36 in	Books > Nonfiction > Law > Practical Guides

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A cops-eye view of the "Terry" stop., January 22, 2007

By	The Dilettante "Dilly!" - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I almost cannot believe this book was written by a cop. If Hunter S. Thompson were not dead before the publication date, I would swear this was ghost-written. When he advises the reader to consider SOILING his or her PANTS to avoid being taken into custody, I can't vouch for the quality of the advice, but I have to admire the author's balls. Other bits of advice are undoubtably real gems; when the author recommends to always ask the cop for a Notice to Appear in court (or "NOA" - this is to be attempted before resorting to the pant-pooping) he is dispensing uncommon practical wisdom. His discussion of racial profiling, and direct advice to young black and hispanic men, is jaw-droppingly frank. Not unlike Thucydides, the author says, in effect: "Let us have no talk of just and unjust."

The bulk of this book is not unlike the various "Know Your Rights" resources published by groups like the ACLU, but it is vastly better. Those other resources give sound advice in the form of "rules," but it is abstracted from 4th and 5th Amendment case law. The truth is that the justice system exists primarily in the cracks between the laws - in the form of police and prosecutorial discretion. The subjective aspects of an encounter with the police - namely police incentives and psychology - are at least as important to your outcome as the positive law is. Any student of the Supreme Court can tell you what to do in a police encounter (e.g. "shut up"), but without any understanding of why you are doing it, it may be VERY difficult advice to follow.

Following the old adage "know your enemy in order to defeat him," the author shows you what a police encounter looks like from the cop's perspective. Police, the author emphasizes, are NOT "just people" - they are "Great White sharks" (his words) trained to churn as many arrests and seizures as possible. But -like sharks- they share certain natural tendencies that make them predictable, (to a limited extent) manipulable, and (above all) avoidable.

Another way it differs from the ACLU brand of rights books and videos is in its urgency. The author argues that, in the electronic panopticon that is today's justice system, an arrest is effectively as damning as a conviction. Computer databases mean that today, not just your penal interests, but also your future employment and your credit can be ruined by an arrest. This is why you - the citizen - must read this book. Not even the best attorney can get you "un-arrested" - you must help yourself by staying free in the first place.

That said, I think the author overstates this point a bit. The class of the offense and your age at the time still matter a great deal. Not even the CIA can afford to exclude everyone with a blemish on their record. Moreover, the panopticon is not really all that efficient (yet). If your name is "Joe Smith," from "Los Angeles," your legibility to the system is still pretty minimal.

Carson limits his advice to those bits helpful to the "clueless" petty criminal - the people most likely to be arrested in a random police encounter. This book tells you only how to navigate what the law calls a "Terry" stop. He's not interested in helping dangerous and/or professional criminals - who are in any event much more likely to be arrested pursuant to a warrant of some sort. (If your house is going to be raided, get a book on prisons, because this won't be of much help.)

This brings us to the author's very interesting editorial thesis: namely, that economics keeps petty offenses criminal. On this account, simple possession of marijuana remains a criminal offense primarily because courts and cops need something to do while they are between rapists and murderers. Petty crime is the daily bread of the justice system. This is a very interesting hypothesis, and while it probably deserves a more scholarly treatment than it recieves here (any U of Chicago grad students in the room?), it seems to me intuitively correct. This beast must eat a steady diet of petty offenders so that it's still in shape when we really need it. But this obviously sucks for the petty offenders (who, when you think about it, are really doing a public service) and Carson is interested in teaching them how to avoid the beast's jaws.

Sadly, the few people who really need this book are unlikely to have the foresight to read it. But, if you are at risk of being arrested this book is for you. If you look weird, are a young male, belong to a racial minority group, travel on foot, drive after midnight, use illegal drugs, have a prior record, or have friends or family who do any of the above, this book is worth taking a look at. Also highly recommended for people who work in the CJ system (except cops, who know this stuff).

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rules for not being arrested, March 23, 2007

By	John - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This is a very good book about how not to get arrested. To summarize the main themes of the book, on how not to get arrested:

- Don't carry guns in your vehicle
- Don't have drugs in your vehicle
- Don't mouth off to cops (actually, shut up when around them)
- Never, ever touch a cop or physically invade his space, etc.
- If a cop sees you, just keep doing what you were doing before he saw you (i.e., the police look for people who change their behavior around the police suddenly).

The entire book is basically variations on those themes. His basic point is that the "clueless" get arrested, because they do one or more of the above. One main message of this book is "if they can't see you, they can't arrest you". Think about it. Who gets arrested ? The guy who is highly visible to police. The white collar criminal, operating behind closed doors is just not visible. The hurdle of a warrant to search a private home in the U.S. is massive. But the hurdle to stop and search a vehicle is not great at all. For that reason, the people who get arrested in the U.S. are people who do stupid stuff in their car (transport guns, transport drugs, get an attitude when stopped, physically touch the officer, etc.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Esssential "How To "Book, January 26, 2008

By	Sandor J. Woren "Freedom Fighter" (Glendale, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

Of the How To" books, this one may be the most important one that you will every read.

Author Dale C. Carson is a former Florida street cop and FBI agent. He is presently a practicing criminal defense attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. As such, he is in a perfect position to reveal the brutal truth about how police work, their methods, dirty tricks, and motivations. He stresses that cops do not receive promotions or accolades for keeping the peace, or resolving disputes by negotiation, but are evaluated and promoted strictly on the number of citations issued and arrests made, especially felony arrests.

He goes on go to explain how easy it is for *anyone* to get arrested, a subtitle of the book. Most non-criminal "upstanding" citizens" can inadvertently become caught up in the criminal justice "plantation," to use a word coined in the book. Arrest records can have serious consequences, even if the charges are subsequently dismissed, not pressed, or you are acquitted. Such an arrest will doom you (especially young people) to a lifetime of low paid jobs, since many employers will not hire anybody with an arrest record, regardless of the judicial outcome or merit of the arrest. This is particularly dangerous in the age of electronic information, where records can last indefinitely. Before the computer age, written records often got lost with age. Not so now.

So the only practical approach is a defensive/preventive/proactive one. Sadly, most people with not read this book until it is too late, if at all. The "clueless" people, who don't even understand the basics of the system, but are either petty criminals or non-criminals, because in their addition to their lack of ability to keep court dates (they do not own or do not use calendars or alarm clocks), frequently turn minor charges to major ones by failure to appear and other add-on charges. Probably most of them are not even literate enough to understand the simple advice in the book.

This book explains how to keep from being sucked into the system. Once you are, it will be very expensive to get out, if it is possible at all. Numerous parasites in the criminal justice system, including cops, lawyers, prosecutors, jailers, social workers, psychologists, have a big interest in perpetuating the system. The most important battle to be won is for custody of your body - remember, cops are visually oriented predators, whose main motivation is to arrest you and take custody of your body.

Buy this book BEFORE you get sucked into the system, and save a lot of money and heartache. As noted by the author, if you are a real, habitual, or big time criminal, this book will not be of much use to you - you will eventually be residing at the "Graybar Hotel" sooner or later. This book, however, is a must read for the non-criminal, petty criminal, or "victimless" criminal, or just for anybody that is naive about a dangerous, unforgiving system, in which ANYONE can inadvertently be caught up in for a momentary lapse of judgment.