What is it like to be a cop and why do we need them?


As American policing faces its gravest existential crisis in recent memory, former Baltimore Homicide Lt. Stephen Tabeling and investigative reporter Stephen Janis team-up to examine this question through the prism of enforcing the law in one of the country's most dangerous city's-Baltimore.


From the mysterious poisoning of an undercover detective to the investigation of an officer dealing drugs out of district headquarters, Tabeling and Janis explore the basic tenets of policing amid bizarre and confounding cases that exemplify the extremes of human behaviour.


But the pair also delves into the most basic question facing cops today: How and why do we police to build better communities? By drawing upon philosophy, mythology, and truisms learned during Tabling's six-decade career The Book Of Cop offers a perspective on the complex origins of crime and our ongoing communal effort to deal with it in a way that is both humane and effective.