Read The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy By Jessica Pishko Full Books Online in HD Quality

A leading authority on sheriffs investigates the impunity with which they police their communities, alongside the troubling role they play in American life, law enforcement, and, increasingly, national politics.

The figure of the American sheriff has loomed large in popular imagination, though given the outsize jurisdiction sheriffs have over people’s lives, the office of sheriffs remains a gravely under-examined institution. Locally elected, largely unaccountable, and difficult to remove, the country’s over three thousand sheriffs, mostly white men, wield immense power—making arrests, running county jails, enforcing evictions and immigration laws—with a quarter of all U.S. law enforcement officers reporting to them. In recent years there’s been a revival of “constitutional sheriffs,” who assert that their authority supersedes that of legislatures, courts, and even the president. They’ve protested federal mask and vaccine mandates and gun regulations, railed against police reforms, and, ultimately, declared themselves election police, with many endorsing the “Big Lie” of a stolen presidential election. They are embraced by far-right militia groups, white nationalists, the Claremont Institute, and former president Donald Trump, who sees them as allies in mass deportation and border policing.

How did a group of law enforcement officers decide that they were “above the law?” What are the stakes for local and national politics, and for America as a multi-racial democracy?

Blending investigative reporting, historical research, and political analysis, author Jessica Pishko takes us to the roots of why sheriffs have become a flashpoint in the current politics of toxic masculinity, guns, white supremacy, and rural resentment, and uncovers how sheriffs have effectively evaded accountability since the nation’s founding.

A must-read for fans of Michelle Alexander, Gilbert King, Elizabeth Hinton, and Kathleen Belew.

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy

The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy

More Books

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America

Talia Lavin

When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s

John Ganz

The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy

Matthew D. Taylor

Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America

Paola Ramos

Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy

Katherine Stewart

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

Liz Pelly

Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

Gareth Gore

The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator's Search for the Unexplained

Stanley Milford Jr.

By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

Rebecca Nagle

Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

Elle Reeve

How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Johanna Hedva

The Devil Behind the Badge: The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer

Rick Jervis