The Minneapolis Reckoning - by Michelle S Phelps (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An urgent account of why it's so difficult to reform the police

The eruption of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence in 2014 spurred a wave of police reform. One of the places to embrace this reform was Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city long known for its liberal politics. Yet in May 2020, four of its officers murdered George Floyd. Fiery protests followed, making the city a national emblem for the failures of police reform. In response, members of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to "end" the Minneapolis Police Department. In The Minneapolis Reckoning, Michelle Phelps describes how Minneapolis arrived at the brink of police abolition.

Phelps explains that the council's pledge did not come out of a single moment of rage, but decades of organizing efforts. Yet the politics of transforming policing were more complex than they first appeared. Despite public outrage over police brutality, the council's initiatives faced stiff opposition, including by Black community leaders who called for more police protection against crime as well as police reform. In 2021, voters ultimately rejected the ballot measure to end the department. Yet change continued on the ground, as state and federal investigations pushed police reform and city leaders and residents began to develop alternative models of safety.

The Minneapolis Reckoning shows how the dualized meaning of the police--as both the promise of state protection and the threat of state violence--creates the complex politics of policing that thwart change. Phelps's account of the city's struggles over what constitutes real accountability, justice, and safety offers a vivid picture of the possibilities and limits of challenging police power today.

Review Quotes

"The Minneapolis Reckoning is an essential text. . . . By bringing together scholarship on policing, social movements, political institutions and policymaking, social justice, and race, Minneapolis Reckoning offers valuable contributions to each while demonstrating the importance of examining their intersections."---Ryan T. Steel, Punishment & Society

"A valuable piece of research on how fights for police reform are won and lost, and what reform means to the people who need it most."---C.J. Ciaramella, Reason

"At the heart of The Minneapolis Reckoning is a nuanced account of the dynamic contests between political actors, movement actors, voters, and other stakeholders that unfolded in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder."---Daanika Gordon, Law & Social Inquiry

"Incredibly compelling. . . . Instead of simply providing a historical chronicle of this tragic event, Phelps successfully captures the complex tapestry of interests and individuals instrumental to the pursuit of police reform in Minneapolis. While her commitment to police reform is evident throughout her writing, one of the many commendable aspects of this work is the nuance and balance she brings to presenting the complexity of views of police violence and possible remedies."---David Latimore, Christian Century

"It is tempting to look back on the summer of 2020 and lament. For those few heady months, the way forward seems so clear. . . . Michelle Phelps' Minneapolis Reckoning is an account of that long, difficult struggle to transform policing in the City of Lakes. Phelps resists the tremendous appeal of a simple elegy. . . . [and] makes a strong case for the possibilities--and perhaps even necessity--of dwelling in the here-and-now of anti-police activism, where those wishing for a new world must relate to 2020 as a practical resource rather than as a revolutionary reverie."---Daniel Fernandez, Inquest

"Phelps highlights the connection between the culture of policing and politics implicating both in the failure to hold police accountable and to rein in their influence. . . . Phelps then moves on to discuss how these failures galvanized activists within the city and began to lead many of them toward an abolitionist approach. . . . While the failure to abolish the MPD may be seen by some as an indictment of the movement, the fact that they were able to garner so much support for a proposition that prior to 2020 would have been dismissed as an impossibility should give hope to activists."---Daniel Krasnicki, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

"Winner of the Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction, Minneapolis Book Awards"

"With the rise of mass movements critical of police violence and of the police role in society over the last decade, researchers began looking at policing anew. . . . What [Michelle Phelps] found is the oft documented duality among African Americans of being wary about police but still wanting to have them around to provide safety. Some have referred to this as the dynamic of over- and underpolicing, but Phelps adjusts that to an excess of problematic policing and a deficit of actual security. . . . Throughout [The Minneapolis Reckoning], Phelps provides a detailed explanation of abolitionist demands and organizing."---Alex S. Vitale, American Journal of Sociology

About the Author

Michelle S. Phelps is professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the coauthor of Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice. Her research has been featured in the Washington Post, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, NPR, FiveThirtyEight, The Appeal, and other media outlets, and has informed criminal justice reform efforts by the Human Rights Watch and Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project.