Friday, April 8, 2016

Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s

Risa Goluboff (University of Virginia), Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s (Oxford Univ. Press 2016).


"In 1950s America, it was remarkably easy for police to arrest almost anyone for almost any reason. The criminal justice system-and especially the age-old law of vagrancy-served not only to maintain safety and order but also to enforce conventional standards of morality and propriety. A person could be arrested for sporting a beard, making a speech, or working too little. Yet by the end of the 1960s, vagrancy laws were discredited and American society was fundamentally transformed. What happened? . . . In Vagrant Nation, Risa Goluboff answers that question by showing how constitutional challenges to vagrancy laws shaped the multiple movements that made 'the 1960s.'" 
Publishers description