GED Essay Directions:

[The articles below present arguments from supporters and critics of police militarization. In your essay,
analyze both articles to determine which position is best supported. Use relevant and specific evidence
from both articles to support your response. Type your essay. You should expect to spend up to 45
minutes planning, drafting, and editing your response.]

PASSAGE 01 :
The Militarization of Police: Harming Civil Liberties, Impacting Children, and Creating War Zones.

by ACLU

News reports frequently show police wearing helmets and masks, wielding assault rifles, and riding in
mine-resistant armored vehicles. These are not isolated incidents—they represent a nationwide trend of
police militarization. Federal programs providing surplus military equipment have equipped police
officers with firepower that is far beyond what is needed for their jobs as protectors of their
communities. Sending a heavily armed team of officers to perform routine police work can dangerously
escalate situations that never needed to involve violence in the first place.

Throughout the United States, heavily armed SWAT teams are raiding people’s homes in the middle of
the night, often just to search for drugs. Military-style police raids have increased dramatically in recent
years, with one report finding over 80,000 such raids last year. It should enrage us that people have
needlessly died during these raids, that pets have been shot, and that homes have been ravaged.
Sometimes children are in the crossfire—often with deadly results.

Our neighborhoods are not warzones, and the police should not be treating us like wartime enemies.
And yet, every year, billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment flows from the federal government to
local police departments. The main beneficiaries of this militarization are military contractors who now
have another lucrative market in which to sell their products. Companies like Lockheed Martin and
Blackhawk Industries are making record profits by selling their equipment to local police departments
that have received Department of Homeland Security grants.

Police departments use these wartime weapons in everyday policing, especially to fight the wasteful and
failed drug war, which has unfairly targeted people of color. According to a recent ACLU report, “of all the
incidents studied where the number and race of the people impacted were known, 39 percent were
Black, 11 percent were Latino, 20 were white.” The majority of raids that targeted blacks and Latinos
were related to drugs—another metric exposing how the “war on drugs” is racist to the core.

PASSAGE 02:

The Truth about Police Militarization

by David Hagner

Over the last few years the role of police in American society has increasingly drawn harsh criticism.
Much is made of the militarization of police, from their acquisition and use of surplus military
equipment, their training with and adopting similar tactics to the military, and intrusive search
procedures. These criticisms are disproportionate and do not take into account the everyday facts of
policing, including:

1. The nature of the threat has changed: Terrorist attacks on American soil have risen in frequency.
Though none have been as destructive as those of 9/11, many more recent attacks have
occurred at the local level and have to be confronted by police. When these incidents occur,
officers need the best available equipment in order to neutralize heavily armed opponents
before they can inflict serious harm on civilians.

2. There is little evidence that new procedures have increased causalities: Statistics of police killings
of civilians do not show any significant increase, while deaths of officers in the line of duty are at
an all-time low, indicating the newer procedures have helped save lives.

3. The vast majority of police-civilian interactions are peaceful: Criticisms about the overuse of
SWAT teams and officers decked out in military gear ignore the fact that most officers patrol the
streets in standard uniforms and interact peacefully with multiple civilians during a given day.
Rates of violent crime are down in most parts of the country. Violent confrontations are the
exception, not the rule.

4. Taking valuable tools away from police officers endangers lives: The stability of police shootings
of civilians, the decline in violent crime, and the decline in police officer fatalities all suggest that
current procedures are working. If officers lose the tactics and equipment they have come to rely
on, these trends could be adversely affected and officers could be put in harm’s way without
adequate protection.
Police exist to serve their communities, and while accusations of over-militarization are exaggerated,
officers do still need to focus heavily on community outreach and dialogue. The only way misconceptions
can be corrected is through transparency, so civilians can see and understand why certain approaches
are warranted.

{BELOW IS THE BEST ESSAY SAMPLE TO SCORE PERFECT IN RLA EXAM}

GED Sample Essay

The following is an example of a high-scoring essay response to the GED Essay Prompt above. Below is
the GED sample essay is a brief analysis justifying its perfect score.

INTRODUCTION

Police militarization is a hot-button topic these days. Some believe that criticizing the actions of the
police hurts their ability to do their job, while others argue that the police are overstepping their
authority and often cause more harm than good. Both passages address this issue head on; however, the
critique of police militarization published by the ACLU is the best-supported and ultimately the most
convincing argument.

BODY PARAGRAPH #1

While the second passage lacks specific statistical data, the ACLU states that there were 80,000 military
raids by police last year. This is surprising and supports the idea that military-style raids have become too
commonplace in society. The writer then highlights the inherent problem with these raids: “of all the
incidents studied where the number and race of the people impacted were known, 39 percent were
Black, 11 percent were Latino, 20 were white.” Police militarization has disproportionately impacted
African-Americans, further supporting how detrimental police militarization is to society.

BODY PARAGRAPH #2

Another reason why the ACLU’s argument is better-supported than Hagner’s argument is because it
directly discusses ethical corruption, unlike Hagner’s essay. The ACLU states, “Companies like Lockheed
Martin and Blackhawk Industries are making record profits by selling their equipment to local police
departments that have received Department of Homeland Security grants.” The ACLU implies that the
reason for this militarization is profit; if this is true, then there is no actual real-world need for the
militarization of the police. Private companies are ultimately designed to make money, not help the
police, so police militarization poses an ethical problem.

BODY PARAGRAPH #3

Finally, the ACLU’s argument is much more convincing than Hagner’s argument because it uses much
more impactful diction. The forcefulness of calling the drug war “wasteful and failed” highlights the high-
stakes nature of this issue. Readers, most likely taxpayers, have a vested interest in not having their
money wasted by the government. The author goes on to imply that the reader may not be safe, since
“heavily armed SWAT teams are raiding people’s homes in the middle of the night.” The tone of this
essay is much more impassioned than the tone of the second, helping to draw engage the reader on an
emotional level.

CONCLUSION

In summary, the ACLU’s argument is better-supported because it includes more data, accusations of
ethical corruption, and forceful language that engages the reader. Hagner’s argument has some merit,
because it does a good job organizing points with a numbered list, but it is ultimately too dry in tone and
does not include any data or quotes from authority figures to back up its claims. The ACLU’s argument
winds up more effectively convincing readers that the militarization of police is something we should all
be concerned about.

Sample Essay Analysis

This essay is very well-organized. It uses 5 paragraphs and lays out the structure in the following
manner:

Paragraph 1 — Introduction (why the ACLU position is better-supported)

Paragraph 2 — Reason #1 — Statistics (two examples given from passage)

Paragraph 3 — Reason #2 — Ethics (one example given from passage)

Paragraph 4 — Reason #3 — Diction (two examples given from passage)

Paragraph 5 — Conclusion