This dynamic echoes a central theme in Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life before Stonewall, an important new work of legal history by Professor Anna Lvovsky. Vice Patrol is a study of antihomosexual policing in U.S. cities between the fall of Prohibition and the Stonewall Rebellion. It expands historical understanding by following antihomosexual enforcement through the rungs of the legal system—from municipal police tactics to appellate review at the Supreme Court. Beyond these contributions to the history of sexuality, however, the book reveals how public discourse filters into and through the judiciary.
September
2024