Lantern has made a commitment to pursuing the central issues of non-violence in its publications from a variety of perspectives.

From the perspective of law enforcement, Lawrence Blum, in Force Under Pressure and Stoning the Keepers at the Gate, makes an impassioned plea for the peace officer community and society to understand the tremendous pressures that cops on the beat face on a day-to-day basis. He argues that extraordinary stress is often ignored by the police and civil establishment and that officers don't know how important relaxation, proper emotional and physical conditioning, and access to therapy and other forms of mental processing are in making sure that they do not overreact to situations and cause them and others harm, if they are placed in a life-threatening situation again.

Charles "Sid" Heal takes a more tactical approach. His concern is to stop violence happening before it starts. In Sound Doctrine, the more specialized Illustrated Guide to Tactical Diagramming, and Field Command Sid, a former SWAT team member and police and military tactician, shows how officers and others involved in policing can monitor and control a situation (whether a rioting crowd or a hostage-taker) in such a way that as few people get hurt as possible.

Violence permeates our society: in Boys Will Be Boys, Myriam Miedzian looks at the cult of masculinist violence that forces boys into roles where they deny their own and others' vulnerability and need for connection. That lack of connection may, indeed, have played a role in the murderous rampage that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris went on at Columbine High School in 1999. Brooks Brown knew them both, and in No Easy Answers, written with journalist Rob Merritt, he explains how a culture of bullying and factionalism in high school (in some ways mirroring the society outside) led these alienated kids to commit the unthinkable.

How does one cope when one has been violated? In Aftershock, psychologist pattrice jones reveals how activists who have been subject to trauma, whether being arrested by the authorities or seeing those whom you are advocating for beaten up or killed, or even simply living in a violent world. And what of the violent person themselves: how might those who care for them (in both senses) deal with them? Dr. Raymond B. Flannery, Jr. has made a career out of studying those who are violent. His books are published by the American Mental Health Foundation Press, whose titles Lantern distributes.

Finally, it would be remiss not to point out that violence against animals takes place every day, in a systematized and almost entirely ignored way on factory farms and in slaughterhouses around the world. We encourage you to look at other titles on our website to find out more about this "acceptable" form of violence.

For more on Peace Officer Memorial Day, click here.