Policing Life and Death Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico

"In this extraordinary book, Marisol LeBrón does a brilliant job of helping us see the everyday activism and cultural inventiveness of Puerto Ricans figuring out how to respond to state repression and colonial capitalism. It’s a genuinely thrilling read."—Laura Briggs, author of How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump

" Policing Life and Death deftly illuminates the long historical presence of 'punitive governance' in Puerto Rico, demonstrating the depth to which gendered, racist state violence defines the US colonial/neocolonial relationship with the island and its people. This indispensable study not only focuses on the normalized, cross-generational violence generated by the policing and criminological regimes, but also pays rigorous attention to the ways Puerto Rican activists, artists, community leaders, and others respond to—and potentially transform—this punitive condition."—Dylan Rodríguez, author of Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the US Prison Regime

"LeBrón's rigorously researched, trenchant examination of how everyday life is sectioned, monitored, and controlled is an essential read for understanding modern-day Puerto Rico and all communities and societies negotiating and defending themselves from the layered execution of power."—Zaire Dinzey-Flores, author of Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City