This past week the nation has watched on television the events unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri involving the shooting of an African-American teenager by a white police officer. Following this event has been the resultant “days of rage” outbursts by protestors who have demanded justice for the slain black teen. While it is not my intent to go into the details involving the investigation of that incident (That is a separate issue), relevant sub-plots have emerged from this event, among which has been the concept of “Police Militarization.”
Police Militarization is not a new concept. Police forces have long had links with the military that no other civil service can boast of. Among these similarities are: A hierarchical structural ranking system (i.e., Chain of Command), uniforms, and the legal mandate to use coercive force as a means of enforcing laws. Indeed, there are similarities between the two, however there are also stark distinctions that must be considered in order to distinguish the conceptual framework being discussed here. As Harvard Criminal Justice scholar/police historian and former NYPD and Chicago PD Lieutenant Thomas Repetto has stated, since the professional era of policing (1920-1970), police agencies have sought to recruit from the military due to the structural similarities between the two entities.
Given the structural similarities between the military and police, it is important to distinguish the very stark differences between the two. The military’s primary focus’ are on external threats, coupled with maxim’s of utilizing maximal amount of force that are consistent with hierarchical protocols for rules of engagement. While this may seem similar to police protocols involving use of force, there are important distinctions that may not be so vivid to a lay observer. The first issue is the concept of legal mandate authorizing minimal force for police. Minimal force should not be confused to mean that deadly force, or a higher level of force such as pain compliance, baton strikes, or use of chemical agents to bring an incident under control.
Graham v. Connor is the standard set for use of reasonable force for police departments. In California for example the law is defined under CA statute 835a, which reads:
Any peace officer who has reasonable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed a public offense may use reasonable force to effect the arrest, to prevent escape or to overcome resistance. A peace officer who makes or attempts to make an arrest need not retreat or desist from his efforts by reason of resistance or threatened resistance of the person being arrested; nor shall such officer be deemed an aggressor or lose his right to self-defense by the use of reasonable force to effect the arrest or to prevent escape or to overcome resistance.
As former San Jose Police Department Lieutenant Edward Flosi writes in PoliceOne.com there are marked distinctions between concepts of minimal force and “objectively reasonable force”. He writes:
The term (objectively reasonable force) does not carry the unrealistically-utopian idealism of the term “minimal force”. It also does not give any implications that it describes an exact quantum of force that can be debated for weeks. It does not give the idea that a use of force should be looked at with hindsight to determine if it really was “necessary”.
What this standard provides the reader is a framework in which to evaluate the officer’s use of force. In the case of both the Ferguson shooting, and the resultant actions taken by the Ferguson police department in the days that followed is valuable to understand and perhaps even critique the performance and actions taken by Darren Wilson, and the department. That should not be taken to mean that the police department’s actions were right, nor should it mean that one should take the intellectually simple position of automatic defense or persecution of Officer Wilson for his decisions last Saturday.
What does this mean for police militarization? Everything. Understanding legal mandates for the use of force is important to understand police action as much for shootings as it is to contain crowd control situations. Having already established the fact that police militarization does not necessarily signify a paradigm shift from what policing is often conceived, it bears importance to understand factors that may or may not have hastened an exponential shift in that direction and how the public perceives shifts toward a more militarized police force.
It would seem that police militarization resulted from reaction by the Federal government and local agencies to events on and after 9/11. To dismiss this as non-relevant would be dismissive, but it would be equally dismissive to fail to dig deeper into the history of the modern militarized police force. Indeed, the growth of Police Paramilitary Units (i.e., SWAT teams) has permeated every department throughout the United States. Virtually every department in the United States has a SWAT team. Most SWAT teams are collateral assignments in which officers trade out regular patrol duties to participate in the “higher risk” assignments that are often associated with SWAT raids. In California there are only four full time SWAT units dedicated to the sole mission of “high risk” raids, handling critical incidents such as active shooters, conducting surveillance on gangs, etc. These full-time SWAT teams are typically in large urban areas with high crime rates such as Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, and Oakland.
The proliferation of SWAT teams is often the most poignant example cited by observers as evidence of a more militarized police force. Indeed, the growth of SWAT and deviation of their mission from their original intent is something that should be accounted for by the public. Ethical use of SWAT teams include handling such critical incidents as Active Shooters (Columbine, Virginia Tech Shooting, etc.), Hostage incidents (ibid), et al. In fact, the original SWAT team conceived by former LAPD Chief Darryl Gates was in fact intended for those purposes. The first SWAT team was created in response to the deadly and extremely damaging repercussions from the LA Watts riots in 1965. To say that SWAT is the same as it was then is wrong. Prominent critic of police militarization, Radley Balko cites this deviation as evidence of growing police militarization. Like scholar Peter Kraska, he cites the deployment of SWAT teams for the purposes of conducting “no-knock” drug raids as well as service of warrants as deviation from original mission of SWAT. Writing for Armed Forces & Society, Scholars Campbell and Campbell write:
Follow up interviews with a large sample of police officials indicated that PPU’s are now usually involved in “no-knock” raids on residences suspected of drug crimes. During such raids, the SWAT team typically conducts predawn storming of a private dwelling. Often using explosive entry techniques, the PPU then carries out a room-by-room search, looking for suspected illegal drugs, guns, and money. The data show that about 80 percent of call-outs during the past five years covered by the survey were for these kinds of raids rather than for more traditional SWAT functions.
Evidentary claims that 9/11 hastened this paradigm shift may be well intentioned, but the fact is this growth in use of SWAT teams has been precipitated by the War on Drugs and the resultant rewards to the department’s who gain capital through asset forfeiture in conducting these raids.
The evidence of police militarization may very well be existant, however there is very little scholarly agreement on a conceptual definition for this phenomenon. As scholar Tomas Weiss states:
There are three separate groups of arguments that challenge the idea that there is an increasing merging of internal and external security forces.
1) Some scholars believe that changes are not taking place at all. They argue that military tactics have not changed at least since the 1960s and the military has always taken part in domestic security to some extent.
2) Authors admit that some changes are taking place but their novelty is in question. They argue that bipolarity constituted a historical exception and that today’s situation represents a return to normality
3) Finally, these scholars recognize the existant changes, but, by contrast believe that it is an unfortunate trend that should be reversed. They argue that merging military and police forces will dilute the traditional roles of each. They further argue that an overreaction to new security threats may have serious consequences for liberal democratic regimes. And third, they claim that using military in law enforcement both abroad and domestically could be counterproductive because of the clash between missions.
What this should tell the observer of the shifting paradigm is that conceptual framework and operative definition is required before moving forward with a discussion on police militarization. Certainly, that does not mean that observers, pundits, and critics should not watch with hawkish eyes the advance of use of police paramilitary tactics. Indeed, the growth of SWAT coupled with changes in tactics used by law enforcement should be evaluated by the public in a transparent and critical way in order to foster public trust and legitimacy required for a police force to police its community. Recent events in Massachusetts where a SWAT team attempted to incorporate its team in order to privatize and circumvent Freedom of Information requests is an example of an agency seeking to keep under wraps its activities, particulary as it pertains to SWAT. In San Jose, recent criticism of the department over its purchase of a drone to be used by its bomb squad, while using a federal grant from Homeland Security is another example of diluted public trust.
It is important to remember when conceptualizing the framework for police militarization is the degree to which the public is willing to accept a militaristic function for its police. Certainly, though there may be some, police utilizing military tactics to quell such phenomenon as active shooters, terror threats etc do not seem unreasonable. However, the policing mission cannot succeed if it does not maintain the respect and trust of its constituency. Members of the public should be mindful in asking these questions, work with their local agencies and leaders to create citizen review boards for any and all activities that may cause a public controversy about police activities. The actions taken in Ferguson, MO is an example of lack of such transparency, which have sadly resulted in the unrest and destruction of peace in that small community.
