Columbia University Press rejected a book for being “too sympathetic towards policing,” according to the author, a criminal justice professor.
Professor Peter Moskos teaches at John Jay College and several other New York colleges. He also is involved with Yale University’s Urban Ethnography Project and is a former police officer.
Moskos spoke to The College Fix about the rejection of his book about the drop in crime in New York City in the 1990s and his allegation that Columbia University Press rejected the book because the “reviewers were too sympathetic to policing,” as originally stated on his Twitter.
He said the book received two positive reviews and then the faculty board asked for a “critical reviewer” to look at it.
Moskos (pictured) said “it’s perhaps unprecedented” for a book to reach the review stage and not get published. “Somebody familiar with the academic publishing business described it as unethical,” the professor said via email.
The book “illustrates the police perspective of a dramatic reduction in crime and violence,” Moskos said. “It explains what the NYPD did and how the police organization changed in a way that contributed to less public disorder and fewer shootings and murders.”
“I believe some faculty members on the board of Columbia University Press refuse to publish a book that is sympathetic to the idea that police and policing can be a force for good,” he said.
After receiving two positive reviews from anonymous reviewers, “the book should have been approved,” Moskos said. “Instead, the board (or members of the board) specifically asked for the manuscript to be sent to a more critical reviewer. This was done. And then the board demanded, in effect, a different book. That effectively killed the book.”
