What does policing actually look like in everyday life, and why does Seattle so often show up in national conversations about public safety, protest, and reform? In this College Edge seminar, Seattle becomes your classroom. You will explore how power and authority shape public spaces, from protests and campus safety to homelessness policy and the everyday rules that govern streets and neighborhoods.

Rather than studying policing only through headlines or theory, you will investigate how it works on the ground. You will ask big questions: How is police power exercised and justified? How do communities respond or resist? Why have conflicts in Seattle become national reference points for police reform?

You will learn how sociologists study policing by combining guided urban observation with hands-on analysis of Seattle-based materials. Through structured field activities, you will practice noticing patterns of police presence, how authority is signaled, and how people respond in public spaces. You will analyze real sources such as civilian oversight records, police union materials, city council debates, historical archives, and media coverage to understand how the same events are framed in very different ways.

Field-based learning may include museum visits, neighborhood or protest-history tours, or virtual walking tours that connect present-day policing to Seattle’s longer histories of labor conflict, protest, race, and urban development. Guest conversations with journalists, researchers, and community advocates will show how policing debates unfold in real time and how knowledge is created, challenged, and shared with the public.

The course concludes with a creative, public-facing project where you translate what you have learned for a general audience. You might produce a short zine, infographic, or podcast script that clearly explains a Seattle policing issue in an accessible and engaging way.

What you will do in this course:

• Guided Urban Observation Labs
  Complete short, structured observations in busy Seattle locations such as transit hubs, downtown corridors, and university-adjacent neighborhoods. You will focus on visible patterns of policing and public space regulation, then reflect on how what you observed connects to course themes.

• Seattle Case Labs
  Analyze real Seattle materials such as consent decree documents, oversight reports, public statements, and protest footage. You will learn how different groups frame the same policing events in different ways.

• Archives and Museums
  Trace how policing in Seattle has changed over time using newspaper archives, public records, and community testimony. Possible visits include the Seattle Municipal Archives, the Museum of History and Industry, and the Wing Luke Museum to explore how policing intersects with labor, race, migration, and urban development.

• Public History Guided Tour
  Participate in a guided neighborhood or protest-history tour, such as a Capitol Hill protest spaces tour or a WTO “Battle in Seattle” walking tour, connecting today’s debates to earlier struggles.

No prior background in sociology is required. This course is designed for curious students who want to better understand the city they are living in and learn how social issues move from the street to public debate.