What does the term, “Militarization of Police”, mean to you? Is it actually a useful term?
Is this supposed to be in the Pit?
I’ve seen it mean “increasing use of military-grade equipment and tactics in police work”, with the attendant implication that military = lethal and overwhelming force.
I haven’t heard that exact phrasing before, but I’d say it’s when police begin using infantry-style tactics and weapons, i.e. serving a search warrant by smashing their way into a home, wielding M16s, using flash grenades and heavily-armored vehicles, and generally treating citizens like an enemy force. This could be acceptable when a SWAT team is needed to apprehend known- or reasonably-suspected dangerous criminals, but we have accounts of shock-and-awe tactics used on low-level drug dealers and such.
I daresay the Golden Age was the LAPD’s “tank” (a modified APC, actually). That was when the notion of protecting the lives and rights of citizens was pretty openly abandoned in favour of accomplishing the “mission” of getting an arrest.
I think it is a very useful term. It describes how US police have transformed themselves into a military occupying forces, whereby they view the public they are supposed to protect as the enemy. It is accompanied by the increasing use of military grade equipment and tactics in policing communities and I think is a result of the war on drugs; a term which implies that our police are at war with certain elements of our society.
Why do you ask and what do you think?
For a very brief time, San Diego had a similar APC: an 8-wheeled armored car with a long ramming pole out in front. It used to be parked right out in front of the police station (Friar’s Road, in Mission Valley.)
I do remember the horrors of the bank robbers who wore armor and carried high-capacity rifles with armor-penetrating rounds. Los Angeles, 1997. The “North Hollywood Shootout.”
This sort of event is part of what led to the escalation in the arms race between crooks and cops. It’s very hard for the “law and order” mind-set to back down in such a competition.
(An example where they have is in restrictions on high-speed chases. The police used to escalate pursuits, throwing in more and more cars, going faster and faster. But, over time, they realized it’s actually better to let one or two of these high-speed felons get away, rather than imperil everyone along the route. So, now, such chases are more likely than in the past to be conducted by helicopter, rather than always via ground pursuit. The police gave up a little of their pride, in order to save lives.)
The term has been in the news recenlty, because the ACLU has issued a report on the subject, documenting a rize in the militarization of police in the US. http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/18582-report-militarized-police-treating-citizens-as-wartime-enemies
Moved to GD.
Nope. That’s why as soon as I noticed I posted it in the Pit, I reported the post and requested it be moved to GD.
Now that you’ve done that, why don’t you tell us what you think and what it is you would like to debate?
I’ve seen the distinction between military-based and community-based policing be that military-based is intended to catch the bad guys, at any cost, and community-based is intended to serve the public. I also think this is a poor choice of terminology, as it’s not the purpose of the actual military to catch the bad guys… In community-based, the police take the effort to be known to the people in the area they protect, usually live there, and spend some time volunteering in the community. In military-based, they usually don’t live there, don’t go to any effort to fit in with the populace, and see the default interaction with civilians as a confrontational situation.
The current sheriff of Ramsey County (Saint Paul) is a big proponent of community-based, and defeated the previous sheriff, Fletcher, who was a proponent of military-based. Watch some videos of the Republican National Convention in 2008 in St. Paul and see all the cops in full riot gear when there was no rioting…
I did tell you. “Is the term meaningful?”
From where I sit, the term’s just tossed out willy-nilly, with no explanation, no nuance, if you will. The implication of the term is “military is bad”. I don’t buy that the military is bad.
What, specifically, is bad about a law enforcement organization being like the military? The USCG is a military organization & I certainly don’t think they’re bad. What about the police using “military ranks”? There’s nothing inherently wrong with that as it gives the organization a quick and easy way to identify supervisory personnel in instances where such quick identification is needed.
So, the way I see it, in general, folks who don’t like cops tend to toss out the term “militarization of police” (or varieties of that term) as a derogatory expression.
To me, it means they drive around in APCs and use assault rifles on unarmed civilians. Oh, and summary executions, too.
I’ve always seen the expression used to refer, rather specifically, to the police executing no-knock raids while dressed up in body armor and carrying M-4 assault rifles and flash-bang grenades (that sometimes land in cribs). These are the sorts of tactics that I would expect the US military to employ in a war zone, and are rather incompatible with the typical “Andy Griffith” view of police.
It’s not a derogatory expression, it’s just that people rather dislike the idea of living in a war zone. Due to human error, these tactics sometimes result in dead innocents, and nobody likes the idea that they could wind up being killed by the police due to a clerical error while others chalk up such loss of life as the cost of doing business.
So yes, I do think it’s a useful term. It most definitely does not mean that the military is bad, or that the police shouldn’t use military ranks.
While the trend was in it’s infancy, it got a gigantic shot of growth hormone in the form of 9/11.
After that, police decided they were the front line in the war on terror. Couple that with an influx of combat veterans leaving the military (or still in the reserves) and becoming police officers and you end up with a predictable result.
I think it is an expression used to describe a negative situation. Here is a link to the ACLU report that I expect is driving your interest in the term: War Comes Home | ACLU and here are some excerpts:
Don’t be silly, of course the military is not bad in and of itself, but military tactics have a place and that place is not in being routinely directed against a nation’s own citizens, if that nation operates on some semblance of democracy.
Sure, use military tactics if there’s a general uprising threatening to overthrow the government. Using them to serve search warrants, though…
Another problem is the cost. Police shouldn’t be spending thousands of dollars on APCs because once in a blue moon there’s a tough door to knock down.
I’m surprised people on a lib board are just hearing about this now. It’s been going on for a long time, decades even, and popular shows have been cracking jokes about it or just straight up showing it (e.g. any show with cops, drug raids) for several years too. The drug war has been a boon to weapons manufacturers since they can sell their stuff to the police. I vaguely remember a pretty intense pit thread from about 8-10 years ago where they got the wrong house on a no knock raid and ended up mowing down some cute elderly couple.
I wonder how much of it is a certain desire by a lot of cops to be “badass” and rock the big-boy hardware. Patrolling one’s beat and being a visible police presence isn’t sexy and isn’t exciting, even though it’s likely very effective at preventing crime, and at apprehending criminals, while wearing “tactical” clothing and carrying something other than a 38 Special or 9mm makes them feel special.
If you go read the military type catalogs like “Cheaper than Dirt” or “US Cavalry” or the others, you’ll find a LOT more military-type clothing and gear in non-military colors (navy blue, brown) and styles (shorts, etc…) than would be accounted for by Walter Mitty types, so I have to figure that cops and sheriff’s deputies are buying this crap.
In just the first two years of the Iraq War, the US military and its allies killed almost ten thousand Iraqi civilians. You don’t see why that is a bad thing in a police force?