The Militarization of Policing in America

Some thoughts and sources for further study about the militarization of law enforcement in America. I used to study trends in law enforcement in Criminal Justice and Sociology classes, and for professional development in my prior career. I remember reading a couple of articles in LE professional journals over a decade ago that addressed the changing attitudes in the "younger generation" of police, and how that was causing a divide between LE and the citizenry. Some of the older LE professionals were worried about the changes in equipment, tactics, training, and attitudes they were seeing in the newer additions to the profession.

That problem has continued to grow over the past decade, and now has a name - the militarization of policing. Here's some of what a quick trip to google turned up...  

What is the militarization of law enforcement? Here it is, in a nutshell:

The police have become more militarized, more soldier-like in the last generation or two," explains journalist and author Radley Balko. "It applies to the weapons they are using, the uniforms they wear...to the tactics they use, to what I think is the most pervasive problem which is the mindset that police officers take to the job."

http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/08/0...itarization-of  

Why should military and LE be different?

To cast the roles of the two too closely, those in and out of law enforcement say, is to mistake the mission of each. Soldiers, after all, go to war to destroy, and kill the enemy. The police, who are supposed to maintain the peace, “are the citizens, and the citizens are the police,” according to Chief Walter A. McNeil of Quincy, Fla., the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, citing the words of Sir Robert Peel, the father of modern-day policing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/su...anted=all&_r=0  

Why can't LE have tacticool toys for use against the real badass villains? Because they end up using those toys on... everyone.

In some cases, the rationale for using military weapons and tactics on domestic soil seems obvious: look no further, proponents argue, than the recent hunt for the Tsarnaev brothers after the Boston Marathon bombings. But what’s remarkable is how routine these tactics have become as a means of pursuing nonviolent suspects and low-level investigations, particularly in the war on drugs.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...am-nation.html

 I see why citizens might be concerned, but why should this be a concern to a law enforcement professional?

Although the botched raid of my home and killing of our dogs, Payton and Chase, have received considerable attention in the media, it is important to underscore that this bill is about much more than an isolated, high-profile mistake. It is about a growing and troubling trend where law enforcement agencies are using SWAT teams to perform ordinary police work. Prince George’s County police acknowledges deploying SWAT teams between 400 and 700 a year— that’s twice a day—and other counties in the state have said that they also deploy their special tactical units hundreds of times a year. The hearings on these bills have brought to light numerous botched and ill-advised raids in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Howard, Montgomery, and Prince George’s counties that also have had devastating effects on the lives of innocent people and undermined faith in law enforcement. . . .

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/10/mili...next%E2%80%9D/  

What would you recommend that LE do, if not using SWAT teams for everything? Well, you old timers may remember this concept called "Community Policing", where the LEOs and the citizenry worked together to deter crime...

Community policing, actual officers walking the streets and interacting with civilians, instead of patrolling in cars or rolling-in armored response vehicles, has by far proven the most effective form of law enforcement – budgetary and statistically. The militarization of local police is inherently opposite of strategies that have shown the best results.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bradlock...-local-police/  

What should be the top priorities of any LE professional? What's wrong with "Officer Safety" being the primary focus of police work?

All of these policies have infused too many police agencies with a culture of militarism. Neill Franklin is a former narcotics cop in Maryland, who also oversaw training at the state's police academies in the early 2000s. “I think there are two critical components to policing that cops today have forgotten," he says. "Number one, you’ve signed on to a dangerous job. That means that you’ve agreed to a certain amount of risk. You don’t get to start stepping on others’ rights to minimize that risk you agreed to take on. And number two, your first priority is not to protect yourself, it’s to protect those you’ve sworn to protect. But I don’t know how you get police officers today to value those principles again. The ‘us and everybody else’ sentiment is strong today. It’s very, very difficult to change a culture.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3749272.html