Mourning Bands On is an accessible journey into the hypersensitive world of today’s American law enforcement. The listener is brought into the law enforcement world through an introduction to the history, function, and development of the American police model. With an understanding of policing’s role in American society, the listener is then immersed into the raucous and contentious cultural upheaval which American policing is currently experiencing.

Using well-known examples, the listener is challenged to consider how American culture is affected by critical incidents and the portrayal of those events in our media intensive world. The listener will review the cases in the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, as well as others. The cases are presented as a narrative of events supported by the findings and legal conclusions of the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Each incident is reviewed with a view of how the incident effected American society and brought change to American culture and thus policing.

The listener will experience how American policing has changed through legislative, societal, and cultural pressure resulting from the reviewed critical incidents. With an appetite for more, the listener is encouraged to further explore the relationship between societal norms and American policing.

The work concludes with a final challenge to the listener. How do we, as a society, reform American policing to move forward after this unprecedented period of cultural change? The author offers several possible reforms to enact, what can you add to the conversation?