July 20, 2025

Police Reform and the Dismantling of Legal Estrangement

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When police are armed and clad in riot gear, they may see themselves more as warriors battling an enemy than as guardians protecting a community. / Photo by Becker1999, Wikimedia Commons

Legal estrangement speaks to detachment and eventual alienation from the law’s enforcers.


By Dr. Monica C. Bell, J.D.
Associate Professor of Law and Associate Professor of Sociology
Yale University


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Originally published by the Yale Law Journal, 2017, free and open access, republished for educational, non-commercial purposes.