Arrested at the Library

Arrested at the Library: Policing the Stacks

Mariama Kaba, 2025
Design by Micah Bazant

The ballooning of carceral systems and of police power has affected libraries, which are increasingly pushed to police patrons, and have more and more options for doing so. Almost from their beginnings, libraries relied on police for rule enforcement. Increased security is supposed to increase the safety of patrons. Often, though, police and security guards may intimidate patrons, or actively threaten them. Libraries in the past have not been major targets of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but many analysts are worried that this will change. While some resistance exists in bringing law enforcement into the library, libraries and law enforcement have intertwined throughout their entire existence. It seems likely that at least in the short term, libraries will continue to find new ways to use police, and the police will continue to find new ways to use libraries.

Read, print, and share Interrupting Criminalization’s new zine. Readers will learn about the history of police in libraries, tales of librarians who have been targeted by law enforcement and those that have resisted policing the stacks. With books, libraries, and library patrons under threat, explore histories of resistance to policing inside libraries and the calls to action going out today.