This chapter explores the expressive meaning of stops and frisks, paying special attention to frisks—police touching of people who, in the eyes of the “law,” are innocent. It argues that stops and frisks can be constructed as a form of torture, the effect of which is the assertion of police dominance of the streets. Stops and frisks cause injuries similar to those of illegal forms of tortures, and have the same kinds of “benefits.” Stops and frisks blur the line between (...) regulation and punishment. They are not supposed to be punishment, but they feel that way to their victims. The chapter is organized as follows. It begins by describing the Terry doctrine and its practice in the real world. It then offers a definition of torture, relying on Foucault's influential construct in Discipline and Punish. Next, it attempts to prove that stops and frisks are a form of torture. The final part of the chapter considers the purpose that this torture serves. (shrink)

Philosophers of history posit a class of concepts known as colligatory concepts that contribute to historical consciousness and that refer specifically to historical events. Although analysis has identified colligatory concepts in historical discourse, these concepts have not yet been investigated empirically. We present a new methodology for studying these concepts and historical consciousness more broadly, as well as pilot data supporting the methodology. Our aim in the pilot study was to establish whether colligatory concepts are processed differently from control concepts (...) when subjects are asked to judge historical statements. We compared judgments of colligatory concepts in healthy participants and in a patient group with impaired working memory cognitive processing capacity. Forty healthy, college-educated participants and 25 patients with Parkinson's disease were asked to rate narrative sentences containing historical content and an equal number of identically constructed narrative sentences of equ.. (shrink)