This book exists because people have more or less lost faith in the police. It’s not hard to see why when you consider the sheer number of dishonest, callous and cruel cops out there. There are so many that it borders on naive to think they exist to protect and serve us. They’ve betrayed our trust to the extent that when they show up, we don’t think ‘here comes the cavalry!’ No, when we see blue and red lights flashing, we feel a sense of dread. Something very nasty is about to happen to us. For the more marginalised members of our communities, encounters with police have a worrying habit of ending in tears and tragedy.