"America likes to tell itself that it inhabits a postracial world, yet nearly every empirical measure-- wealth, unemployment, incarceration, school segregation-- reveals that racial inequality has barely improved since 1968, when Richard Nixon became our first 'law and order' president." Hayes examines the surge in crime that began in the 1960s and peaked in the 1990s, and the unprecedented decline that followed. Drawing on close-hand reporting at flashpoints of racial conflict, as well as deeply personal experiences with policing, Hayes explores cultural touchstones, from the influential "broken windows" theory to the "squeegee men" of late-1980s Manhattan, to show how fear causes us to make dangerous and unfortunate choices, both in our society and at the personal level. With great empathy, he seeks to understand the challenges of policing communities haunted by the omnipresent threat of guns. Most important, he shows that a more democratic and sympathetic justice system already exists-- in a place we least suspect.