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Walk the Walk: How Three Police Chiefs Defied the Odds and Changed Cop Culture Hardcover – March 21, 2023

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 25 ratings

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From “one of the most interesting sociologists of his generation” and a former cop, the story of three departments and their struggle to change aggressive police culture and achieve what Americans want: fair, humane, and effective policing.

What should we do about the police? After the murder of George Floyd, there’s no institution more controversial: only 14 percent of Americans believe that “policing works pretty well as it is” (CNN, April 27, 2021). We’re swimming in proposals for reform, but most do not tackle the aggressive culture of the profession, which prioritizes locking up bad guys at any cost, loyalty to other cops, and not taking flak from anyone on the street. Far from improving public safety, this culture, in fact, poses a danger to citizens and cops alike.

Walk the Walk brings readers deep inside three unusual departments―in Stockton, California; Longmont, Colorado; and LaGrange, Georgia―whose chiefs signed on to replace that aggressive culture with something better: with models focused on equity before the law, social responsibility, racial reconciliation, and the preservation of life. Informed by research, unflinching and by turns gripping, tragic, and inspirational, this book follows the chiefs―and their officers and detectives―as they conjured a new spirit of policing. While every community faces unique challenges with police reform, Walk the Walk opens a window onto what the police could be, if we took seriously the charge of creating a more just America.

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From the Publisher

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Informed and impassioned... thoughtful and important. Gross’s optimism about police reform offers an antidote to the cynicism and gloom that pervade most such discussions. His book is replete with both empathy and pragmatism."
The New York Times

"A vital contribution to the debate over policing and the possibility of reform."
―Chris Hayes

"Excellent... Gross cuts through hyperbole and ideology to examine the realities of crime and law enforcement, presenting strong evidence that change is possible and the police can and should do better in our democratic society."
Booklist

"Tightly focused and consistently persuasive, this is a crucial guide to solving a pressing social issue."
Publishers Weekly

“This book shows what policing could be.”
Library Journal, starred review

"A conversation-provoking look at the real world of police work and ways to make it better for all concerned."
Kirkus

“A crucial and timely read.”
Jonathan Lemire, “Way Too Early,” MSNBC

Walk the Walk is something that everyone needs to read, conservative, progressive and everything in between."
John Fugelsang, “Tell Me Everything,” Sirius FM

“An illuminating look at the possibilities of policing, Neil Gross’s book should be required reading for every precinct across the country.
Walk the Walk is infused with hope and wisdom, and offers a new vision of what law enforcement could be.”
―Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises

Walk the Walk is mandatory reading and truly a roadmap to success in police reform.”
―Art Acevedo, former chief of the Austin, Houston, and Miami police departments and past president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association

“A must-read for anyone who believes the time for change in policing is long overdue. As a former cop and distinguished sociologist, Neil Gross brings unique insight and empathy to this vexing subject. He knows how hard it is to achieve meaningful reform, yet he makes a convincing case: change is possible.”
―Eyal Press, author of Dirty Work

"A great strength of the book is the close rendering of individual officers' experiences... Gross humanizes and complicates a profession that is easy to stereotype."
National Civic Review

“A refreshing break from our hyper-polarized debate over public safety and criminal justice reform,
Walk the Walk shows that better policing is possible.”
―Matthew Yglesias, author of One Billion Americans

“Neil Gross brings the debate on police reform to life with this nuanced and highly readable account of how three very different police agencies managed to change their culture and behavior.
Walk the Walk is a crucial and timely contribution to our understanding of the state of American policing and its prospects for change.”
―Elliott Currie, author of A Curious Indifference

About the Author

A former patrol officer in the police department in Berkeley, California, Neil Gross is a professor of sociology at Colby College. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, he is the author of two previous books and has also taught at Harvard and Princeton. He lives in Maine.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Metropolitan Books (March 21, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250777526
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250777522
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 0.95 x 9.55 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 25 ratings

About the author

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Neil Gross
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Neil Gross, a sociologist best known for his research on higher education, politics, and academic life, is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Colby College in Maine and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center in Washington, DC. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Gross holds a bachelor’s degree in legal studies from UC Berkeley and received his PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before joining the Colby faculty in 2015, Gross taught at the University of Southern California, Harvard, the University of British Columbia, and Princeton.

After college, Gross served as a police officer in California, and chose the University of Wisconsin for graduate school in part because one of the leading scholars of police reform, Herman Goldstein, taught there at the time. Gross’s academic interests led him in other directions for more than two decades, but he never gave up the goal of doing research that might help improve American policing and advance the cause of justice. Walk the Walk is his first work of narrative non-fiction.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
25 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the content compelling, thought-provoking, and interesting. They also describe the pacing as consistent and readable.

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3 customers mention "Engrosing content"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the content compelling, thought-provoking, and interesting. They say it's one of the most nuanced accounts they have read.

"...The result is one of the most nuanced accounts I’ve read...." Read more

"...Yet, Neil Gross offers a well-written, compelling, and accessible method of contemplating this difficult issue...." Read more

"This is an interesting and well written account of three police departments’ successful reform...." Read more

3 customers mention "Pacing"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book well-written, compelling, and accessible. They also appreciate the prose is consistently engaging and readable.

"...The prose is consistently engaging, even when prior research on policing is being discussed. And the accounts of actual policing are always gripping...." Read more

"...Yet, Neil Gross offers a well-written, compelling, and accessible method of contemplating this difficult issue...." Read more

"This is an interesting and well written account of three police departments’ successful reform...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2023
This is the best book I’ve ever read about policing. Full stop.

I’ve long been familiar with Neil’s academic writing on higher education, as it’s relevant to my own research. I’ve always known he’s smart and a creative thinker. When I saw he’d written a book about cops and policing, it was a surprise given that it represented a considerable topic change. It was an even greater surprise to learn that he’d been a cop in Berkeley, California, where he and I both attended college (we’ve never met, then or now).

As a former cop, it was clear that the police officers Neil was studying were entirely comfortable with him. This shows throughout the book, which is relentlessly (and effortlessly) even-handed. Neil is obviously sympathetic towards the myriad challenges of good policing, so when he’s critical it comes across as entirely in good faith. The result is one of the most nuanced accounts I’ve read. In the process, Neil manages to invoke all of the major scholarship on policing from the past century (I was happy that Neil mentioned Egon Bittner’s 1967 article about policing skid row, long a personal favorite since my graduate school days).

I was a fan of Rosa Brooks’ memoir of becoming a Washington DC police officer, another recent book on policing, but Neil’s book is much broader in scope. Neil examines how three very different police chiefs/sheriffs—one conservative, one hippy dippy, one technocratic—manage to create good departments with constructive police cultures. The answers aren’t easy, but the net cast here is very broad. It turns out there’s no one single way to create a good police department.

As someone familiar with Neil’s academic work, I was delighted about just how readable this book is. The prose is consistently engaging, even when prior research on policing is being discussed. And the accounts of actual policing are always gripping. It’s not many academics who could write a sentence like “The s___ is going down,” and have it sound completely natural, like something that could have come out of the mouth of one of Neil’s subjects.
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2023
As noted by the author, policing in America is one of the most controversial issues impacting society today. The debate surrounding police reform reflects the sharp polarity surrounding America's politics and cultural identity. Yet, Neil Gross offers a well-written, compelling, and accessible method of contemplating this difficult issue. By exploring the topic through three case studies, the book avoids the kind of esoteric language which often characterizes policy making. Rather, I was offered concrete examples of what positive police reform really looks like and tangible methods of implementing these reforms.

Furthermore, although adhering to respected methods of social science research, the book is also bolstered by a sense of compassion and introspection - undoubtedly cultivated through the author's personal experience as a police officer himself. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wonders if there is a way to reimagine a deeply problematic institution in a sustainable and viable way.
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2023
How often do we hear the call for a change in police culture? If you’re like me, that call is overwhelming—what does it mean to change police culture? What would a change in police culture look like? And who would do it? In his new book, Walk the Walk: How Three Police Chiefs Defied the Odds and Changed Cop Culture, Neil Gross, Colby College sociology professor and former Berkeley police officer, focuses on three very different police forces whose culture changed significantly. In each of the communities—Stockton, California, Longmont, Colorado, and LaGrange, Georgia—a strong police chief implemented changes that transformed his force in ways that both gained the trust of the community and served its law enforcement needs. Gross takes time to describe each chief’s personality, police experience, and thinking and to describe the community’s economic, political, and racial history. He goes into detail about each chief’s thoughtful and incremental approach to changing the culture among his officers—procedural justice in Stockton, restorative justice in Longmont, reckoning with past police racial injustice in LaGrange. Strengthening his points, Gross discusses various criminal justice research studies and scholarly works to explain the theoretical underpinnings of each of the approaches. Gross does a particularly good job of discussing police and citizens’ cynicism about police reform, the reasons for that cynicism as well as the dangers of it. At the end of the book, Gross makes clear that as important as strong and thoughtful police chiefs are in changing police culture, “changing cop culture requires one more thing: the community.” That point occurred to me as I read the book. I kept thinking how powerful it would be if Gross’ book were picked up by book clubs all across the country and that communities of readers would begin to grapple with the role they can play in supporting cultural changes in police work. Instead of grousing about the need for change or leaving that process up to chiefs and officers, readers could engage in thoughtful discussions on the book and how its ideas on changing police culture connect to the needs of their communities and then work with police to act on those discussions.

Joan Kernan Cone, PhD
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Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2023
This is an interesting and well written account of three police departments’ successful reform. The book will interest anyone thinking about how police can do better.
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2023
We all need to understand the pressures of policing today and what practices can help move toward a more civil society. This book is important as Dr. Gross is an academic but also has been a cop. Policing can improve with cooperation between police and academics with relevant research information on what works. The answers are not the same in all police departments but an honest effort to improve policing by being informed of relevant research, having community input and dedicated cops can move the needle.
One person found this helpful
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