Issues & Controversies

Militarization of the Police

November 21 2014

INTRODUCTION
Federal programs providing weapons, tanks, and protective gear to local police departments help save police lives and
ensure public safety. Equipment such as armored vehicles can be useful in cases of natural disasters, and other items, like
machine guns and night-vision goggles, can assist police in high-risk situations like SWAT raids. Military-style equipment
provides much-needed assistance to cash-strapped police departments, and the U.S. government operates these programs
with careful oversight.

Outfitting police like soldiers, training them like troops, and giving them military-style weapons and vehicles cultivate a
warlike mentality that undermines time-tested community-based policing tactics. Police have used such equipment for
high-risk, low-reward SWAT raids, which intimidate and terrorize poor and minority communities and lead to
unnecessary deaths. Federal programs that provide this equipment need stricter oversight and significant reform.

Associated Press Police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, use military equipment to disperse protesters
demonstrating the death of Michael Brown at the hands of officer Darren Wilson.

In early August 2014, Darren Wilson, a white police officer, shot to death an unarmed, black teenager, Michael Brown, in
Ferguson, Missouri, a town outside St. Louis. Conflicting accounts of the shooting emerged: The Ferguson police
department claimed Wilson had been defending himself, but some witnesses claimed that Brown had held his hands up
and was trying to surrender at the time he was shot.

Demonstrations erupted in Ferguson soon after Brown's death. Community members gathered to express outrage at the
incident and denounce the police department. Some of the demonstrations led to rioting and looting. In confrontations
with protesters, heavily armed police officers in full riot gear resorted to tear gas, smoke bombs, rubber bullets, and
employed mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs) to control the crowds. Many protesters adopted a surrender
pose—both hands up in the air—as they faced police, as a kind of taunting reference to the position Brown had reportedly
been in when he was shot. Nationally televised images of police pointing their guns at unarmed demonstrators and videos
of police officers swearing at, insulting, and threatening protesters sparked widespread anger. After days of tension and
violence, Missouri governor Jay Nixon (D) transferred responsibility for managing the protests from St. Louis County
police to the state police.

In addition to reigniting longstanding debates over racial profiling and police brutality, the unrest in Ferguson drew
attention to the controversy over the so-called militarization of the nation's police. Many observers have argued that
armored vehicles, high-powered guns, camouflage fatigues, and other repurposed military accessories are fundamentally
misplaced in American cities and suburbs. Such equipment, they contend, is appropriate only for war zones, not law
enforcement situations in the United States where authorities are dealing primarily with civilians.

In the United States, the armed forces and local law enforcement play drastically different, carefully demarcated, roles.
The armed forces—including the Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy—primarily focus on protecting Americans from
foreign threats, while local police and state troopers aim to enforce the law domestically.

Yet local police forces sometimes receive military-type gear through a variety of grants and programs run by the U.S.
Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security. One of the most notable of
these initiatives is the 1033 program, which Congress created in 1989 to allow the Defense Department to help combat
illegal drug activity by transferring military equipment to local police departments. Congress later expanded 1033 to
include equipment that could help police in antiterrorism efforts. Some of the gear used by local police departments is
former military equipment no longer needed by the armed forces; other military-style equipment is brand new, purchased
through federally provided grants.

In addition, the recent winding down of American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has freed up massive
amounts of military equipment. As Politico journalist Jonathan Topaz explained in an August 2014 article, 1033 "initially
began as a way to combat increased crime in U.S. cities and devote more resources to the War on Drugs. But with the
drawdown from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has been gifting increasing numbers of high-level weapons to
municipalities that critics say have no place in civilian contexts."

As a result, some police departments now have weapons, vehicles, and surveillance tools designed for combat use.
According to a New York Times analysis of Pentagon data in June 2014, police departments under the administration of
President Barack Obama (D) have received thousands of machine guns, ammunition magazines, camouflage fatigues,
night-vision equipment, silencers, armored cars, and aircraft. The Defense Department has distributed 617 MRAPs to
small police departments around the country as well as armored personnel carriers called BearCats. Towns have cited a
variety of justifications for the acquisition of MRAPs, some of which have struck observers as absurd. The small New
Hampshire town of Keene, for example, petitioned for a BearCat to help protect its annual pumpkin festival from terrorist
threats. (There were drunken riots at the 2014 pumpkin festival, including college students chanting for police to "bring
out the BearCat," though no terrorist activity occurred.)

Police have often used this military gear to carry out Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) operations. SWAT teams were
first created in the 1960s as specialized groups trained to handle extreme threats, such as hostage situations or instances
involving an active shooter. (According to the Department of Homeland Security, an active shooter situation is any
scenario involving "an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated
area.") In recent decades, greater numbers of police departments have employed SWAT teams, deploying them tens of
thousands of times a year, often to deal with relatively routine tasks such as investigating low-level drug offenses. Reports
of civilian deaths occurring in the midst of heavily armed raids have repeatedly outraged the public.

The debate over the militarization of the police overlaps with the controversy surrounding competing policing
philosophies. Critics have argued that the militarization of police undermines "community-based" or "community-
oriented" policing. This is an approach in which police departments eschew the aggressive prosecution of low-level
offenses and attempt to form close relationships with communities. The aim is to encourage law-abiding citizens to report
information about more serious crimes and cooperate in investigations.

On the other hand, the use of police tactics such as quality-of-life policing (cracking down on small offenses like loitering
and vandalism) and stop-and-frisk (stopping, questioning, and searching anyone who looks suspicious) run counter to the
community policing model. Supporters of such aggressive tactics argue that they stop crime and save lives.

Amid the crisis in Ferguson in mid-August, President Obama ordered a review of all federal programs that provide
military gear to police departments across the nation. Shortly after, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder released a
statement agreeing that the government should "take a look at whether military-style equipment is being acquired for the
right purposes and whether there is proper training on when and how to deploy it."

Has the so-called "militarization" of the police made Americans safer?

Supporters argue that policing is an extraordinarily dangerous job, and federal programs that provide local law
enforcement agencies with much-needed equipment and grants help keep officers safe. Police officers can use that
equipment, proponents contend, to crack down on offenses such as drug violations and assist communities in natural
disasters or terrorist situations. Military-style equipment helps police keep order and protect the public, supporters add,
and the federal programs that provide that equipment should continue.

Opponents argue that providing military-style equipment to police departments with little oversight, training, or clear
guidelines is a recipe for disaster. When police have such high-power "toys," critics contend, they will find an excuse to
use them, likely at the expense of citizen safety and civil liberties. The funneling of federal money and military gear to
police will only encourage more aggressive policing tactics, opponents add, particularly in poor and minority
communities, and police who think of themselves as soldiers are more likely to view citizens as the enemy.

Overview

A Brief History of U.S. Military Involvement With the Police

The maintaining of law and order in the early United States was largely informal; few cities and towns had police
departments, and policing was done primarily on a voluntary basis by citizens with no official powers. In 1751,
Philadelphia became the first city to have a paid police force, but it remained small and limited. Not until the mid-19th
century, when immigration swelled and cities grew rapidly, did local jurisdictions begin establishing formal police
departments. The New York City Police Department was formed in 1845 and the Boston Police Department in 1854.

Early American police departments were inspired by the law enforcement philosophies of Robert Peel, a prominent 19th-
century British statesman who instituted sweeping social reforms in the early and mid-19th century. Before serving as
prime minister in the 1830s and 1840s, Peel established the Metropolitan Police Force, the law enforcement agency
responsible for policing much of London, in 1829. (British police are still often referred to as "bobbies," a reference to
Peel's first name.) Peel believed that police should borrow some methods from the military—including hierarchical
organization, uniforms, and discipline—while remaining a distinct, separate entity.

Despite the development of police departments in the United States, the military sometimes remained responsible for
maintaining order. In 1863, for example, deadly riots broke out in New York City in opposition to the draft. President
Abraham Lincoln (R, 1861–65) sent more than 4,000 soldiers to quell the violence and enforce the law. A few years later,
when state and local governments in former Confederate states refused to protect the rights of African Americans in the
late 1860s and 1870s, the U.S. Army enforced the law in many parts of the South.

Opposition to the use of the military for such functions led Congress to pass the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878, which
prohibited the use of active-duty soldiers to enforce state laws. (This law did not apply to the National Guard, which was
used several times in ensuing decades to stop labor strikes.) In the following decades, more and more towns acquired
official police forces, and the first half of the 20th century saw the establishment of professional police forces in every
major U.S. city.

In the 1920s, police departments came under close scrutiny as a result of the rise of organized crime. After ratification of
the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919 banned alcohol, criminal gangs formed to supply it illegally,
often corrupting police and engaging in deadly gun battles with rival gangs. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover (R, 1929–
33) appointed the Wickersham commission, headed by former U.S. attorney general George Wickersham, to investigate
how well police forces were combating crime. The commission's work prompted analyses of the effectiveness of police,
and in the decades that followed, many departments instituted reforms to purge corruption and distance themselves from
outside influence.

In the 1940s and 1950s—during and after World War II (1939–45)—police chief O.W. Wilson, who had led departments
in both Fullerton, California, and Wichita, Kansas, developed a series of policies that sparked another wave of police
reform. Wilson urged domestic law enforcement agencies to model themselves more on military organizational structures.
"Closer supervision of police officers was recommended," Gary Potter, a professor in Eastern Kentucky University's
School of Justice Studies, wrote in 2013 in an online history of U.S. policing on the school's website, "[F]oot patrols were
replaced by motorized patrols, precinct houses were consolidated and more central police facilities constructed; and
command functions were centralized in a headquarters staff." These new policing tactics also included practices such as
stop-and-frisk, in which officers stop people they think appear to be suspicious and search them for weapons and other
contraband. Such tactics, however, were controversial and became associated with the harassment of young men of
minority descent. "Police professionalism and the military model of policing," Potter wrote, "became synonymous with
police repression."

Crime rates and drug abuse rose during the 1960s, spurring national lawmakers to seek greater means of supporting local
law enforcement agencies. In 1968, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, which allowed the
federal government to provide grants to local jurisdictions that could be used to purchase riot and SWAT gear.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon (R, 1969–74) declared a "war on drugs," providing new impetus for federal grants to
local police forces. The program intensified under the administration of President Ronald Reagan (R, 1981–89), who
promoted efforts to fight drug use by increasing penalties on low-level drug crimes. In 1989, Congress instituted the 1208
program—named after the section of the National Defense Authorization Act that established it—which allowed the
Department of Defense to transfer military equipment to local police departments for use in the war on drugs. In 1997 the
program was renamed 1033 and expanded to allow equipment transfers that could aid in the disruption of terrorist plots.

Since the 1990s, crime rates in the United States have declined markedly, a drop many experts attribute to new
community policing efforts, changing demographics (such as the aging of the U.S. population), and other factors. Some
law enforcement agencies have claimed that that using military technology has helped police fight crime, though other
observers note that these instances tend to be relegated to isolated cases—such as a case in Texas in 2010 where an
armored military vehicle was able to shield police as they apprehended a gunman with a machine gun—and have not had
a wide impact on the crime rate.

Through programs like 1033, police departments continued to receive equipment from the military, even as crime rates
began to fall. Between 1997 and 2014, a period that saw a decrease in national crime rates, the 1033 program transferred
more than $5.1 billion worth of federal weapons, vehicles, and equipment into local law enforcement hands.

After terrorists associated with the international Islamist group Al Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11,
2001, killing nearly 3,000 Americans, law enforcement agencies instituted new measures. They stepped up security and
surveillance of suspected groups and implemented a more militaristic approach to thwarting terrorism. "Police forces
throughout the country," Atlantic journalists Arthur Rizer and Joseph Hartman wrote in November 2011, "have purchased
military equipment, adopted military training, and sought to inculcate a 'soldier's mentality' among their ranks."

Much of this equipment, however, has been used in activities unrelated to battling terrorism, including search-warrant
execution, crowd control, and daily patrols. Veterans returning from the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have noted that
they often see police officers carrying the same weaponry and wearing the same gear they used on their tours of duty
overseas.

In addition to the 1033 Defense Department program, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) also provide police forces with equipment or grants to buy equipment. In 2005, Congress consolidated several
smaller programs into the Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, under which the Justice Department funds state and
local government purchases of equipment such as computers, camera systems, and firearms. The use of JAG funds to buy
especially powerful equipment, such as armored vehicles, requires special permission from department officials. The
DHS, meanwhile, often distributes grants to state homeland security agencies, which in turn distribute funds or equipment
to local police departments. The level of oversight that federal agencies should provide over how police forces use
military equipment, however, has bred controversy.
 The U.S. military has provided large amounts of equipment to local police forces including vehicles,
weapons, and other gear.

SWAT Raids and Protest Crackdowns Inspire Debate

Closely related to the debate over the militarization of police has been the increased use of Special Weapons and Tactics
(SWAT) teams by local law enforcement departments. In the 1960s, police forces developed SWAT operations to handle
tense and violent situations, including terrorist attacks, hostage seizures, and active shooters. The number of SWAT teams
and the frequency with which they are deployed has skyrocketed since the 1980s. According to Eastern Kentucky
University criminal justice professor Peter Kraska, SWAT team use increased by 1,500 percent from 1980 to 2000. In
1984, about 25 percent of police forces in towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 had SWAT teams. By 2005,
80 percent of such towns did. An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 SWAT raids occur in the United States every year—about
150 every day.

Much of the equipment, weapons, and clothing funneled to local police departments through federal programs like 1033
finds a place among SWAT officers, who often don all-black or camouflage uniforms, helmets, and other military-style
gear. "The ubiquity of SWAT teams has changed not only the way officers look, but also the way departments view
themselves," New York Times journalist Matt Apuzzo wrote in June 2014. "Recruiting videos feature clips of officers
storming into homes with smoke grenades and firing automatic weapons." A Springdale, Arkansas, police recruiting
video, Apuzzo noted, depicts "officers throwing a flash grenade into a house and creeping through a field in camouflage."

Police often deploy SWAT teams after receiving "no-knock" warrants, which allow them to enter a household or business
to search for illegal drugs or other contraband without knocking, in order to deny the occupant a chance to get rid of the
items. Such raids are sometimes carried out at night, resulting in several incidents in which homeowners—believing that
the armed persons bursting through their doors were not police, but burglars—sought to defend themselves with their own
firearms.

Indeed, stories of botched SWAT raids—with tragic consequences, in some cases—have flooded the media in recent
years. When a SWAT team in Detroit, Michigan, threw a flash grenade—a nonlethal device intended to stun a target
through a bright flash of light and loud noise—into a home before entering in 2010, the officers shot and killed a seven-
year-old girl in the confusion that followed. A SWAT raid in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011 resulted in the death of Iraq war
veteran Jose Guerena, whose wife had woken him up after seeing an armed man in their yard. Guerena picked up his own
gun before SWAT officers entered his home and, seeing him armed, shot him to death. Also in 2011, a SWAT team officer
tripped and accidentally discharged his weapon, killing the stepfather of a suspected drug dealer in Framingham,
Massachusetts. In 2014, a flash grenade tossed into a Georgia family's house during a SWAT raid landed in an infant's
crib, putting the child in a coma for several days. In a far less dangerous but nevertheless embarrassing incident, SWAT
teams in Orange County, Florida, faced ridicule after raids on barber shops looking for drugs and guns resulted largely in
charges of "barbering without a license."

The increasing use of SWAT teams for low-level drug busts has raised concerns that poor communities with large
minority populations have borne the brunt of raids, and of raids gone wrong. In June 2014, the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) released a report finding that in situations where SWAT teams were deployed for drug searches, 42
percent of people targeted were black and 12 percent were Latino.

Other, larger-scale incidents of police militarization have spurred debate in recent years. In 2011, many criticized the
police response to Occupy Wall Street, a popular movement protesting economic inequality in the United States.
Protesters had established a camp in Zuccotti Park, in New York City's financial district. After several attempts to disperse
the protesters, police eventually employed military-style tactics and equipment in a late-night raid that forced all
demonstrators from the park.

In April 2013, Boston police launched a massive manhunt for Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, two brothers suspected
of planting bombs that exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds.
As police hunted for the suspects, officers in full protective gear drove armored vehicles around the city after asking
Boston residents to stay indoors. Some law enforcement officials later argued that the use of such military-grade
equipment helped find the suspects, although Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was ultimately caught after a resident in nearby
Watertown, Massachusetts, noticed a pool of blood coming from a boat in his backyard, where Tsarnaev was hiding.
(Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed earlier in a gunfight with police.) Observers celebrated his capture, but some expressed
concern that the municipal police department had resembled an occupying army rather than a local police force.

Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown in August 2014 prompted further debate about the
militarization of police. Amid the unrest, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder issued a statement criticizing some of the
police's tactics. "At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community," he
said, "I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message."
Holder urged Justice Department officials to work with local police units to devise methods to "maintain public safety
without relying on unnecessarily extreme displays of force." In September, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs held hearings on 1033 and similar federal programs to enable citizens and groups to
weigh in on the issue and suggest possible reforms. [See National Tactical Officers Association Defends Militarization of
Police (primary source); NAACP Representative Criticizes Militarization of Police Before Senate Committee (primary
source)]

Supporters Argue

Police Should Use Military-Style Equipment and Tactics

Supporters of providing police departments with military equipment argue that such equipment protects officers and helps
them enforce the law and maintain the peace. Police officers perform one of the hardest, riskiest, and most important jobs
in society, proponents note, and deserve to have the best possible equipment to protect themselves. "[T]he brave men and
women of this profession willingly place themselves between danger and the public every day and at great personal
sacrifice," Mark Lomax, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, a SWAT training group, testified
before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on September 9, 2014. He argued:

[T]hose law enforcement officers [who] are asked to conduct the most difficult and dangerous missions
deserve the appropriate level of training and equipment to ensure, as much as possible, their success and
safety. The Department of Defense 1033 Program and Department of Homeland Security grant funding has
supported that effort by providing much needed safety and emergency response equipment.

Police departments that use federal programs to get the latest, best equipment, supporters assert, are merely trying to
protect their officers against well-armed criminals in tense, life-and-death situations. "We're not going to go out there as
Officer Friendly," Kevin Wilkinson, a police chief in Neenah, Wisconsin, told the New York Times in June 2014, "with no
body armor and just a handgun and say 'Good enough.'"
A decline in crime rates in recent years, supporters argue, does not mean that police work is any easier or safer. "Although
the U.S. has seen a steady decrease in overall crime over the last decade," Lomax testified, "local law enforcement
agencies have also been challenged with increasing threats such as violent gang and extremist group activity, border
security issues, and active shooter scenarios in schools, businesses, and other public venues."

Military equipment, proponents claim, helps police perform tasks other than just preventing and fighting crime. After
devastating storms in Seminole County, Florida, advocates note, the sheriff's office used heavy-duty trucks for rescue
operations, to clear fallen trees, and to deliver sandbags and supplies. "Those heavy duty trucks," Lomax said in his
testimony, "were used as a means by which deputies with chainsaws were able to cut, drag, and clear extremely large trees
that had blocked many roadways and access points well ahead of any other type of available public or county resource."

Military equipment also enables police to perform vital functions, especially in remote places where assistance is far
away. "We received some night-vision gear," Mark Prosser, public safety director for the Storm Lake Police Department
in Iowa, told the Des Moines Register. "We use that for surveillance on drug operations. But we also use it to help find
missing children and seniors. We're an isolated county. There's no one to call for help out here in a real emergency. If I
can get equipment for my officers that makes them safer and the public safer for almost no cost, then I would be crazy not
to do it."

The pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers after the Boston Marathon bombings, supporters argue, proves that military
equipment can be invaluable in times of crisis. "We believe that the preparedness grant funds provided to Massachusetts
and to Boston saved lives and restored and ensured public safety in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing,"
Brian Kamoie, assistant administrator for grant programs for the Department of Homeland Security, testified before the
Senate committee on September 9, 2014. "Events in Boston focused a spotlight on the…connection between specialized
equipment and the ability of law enforcement agencies to respond quickly and effectively to a terrorist event while
simultaneously providing for the safety and welfare of their officers and the public."

To prevent abuse or misappropriation of equipment, supporters note, federal agencies carefully monitor what equipment
police departments acquire, and how police officers use that equipment. "The [Homeland Security] Department considers
oversight of preparedness grant programs a priority, and takes this responsibility very seriously," Kamoie testified. "[T]he
Department has maintained a rigorous system of both programmatic and financial monitoring."

It is illogical, critics contend, to argue that the use of military equipment in crowd control incites riots, as some observers
alleged happened in Ferguson, Missouri after Michael Brown's death. "[T]here's the argument that the militarized police
were inciting the crowd," National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote in August 2014. "[I]t should be possible for lawful,
well-intentioned people to restrain themselves from throwing things at cops whose uniforms and vehicles they don't
like…. What Ferguson needs is the restoration of basic order, and the absence of it has never been the fault of the police,
but of a small, lawless fringe of protestors bent on mayhem."

Opponents Argue

Police Should Not Use Military-Style Equipment and Tactics

Opponents of providing police departments with military equipment argue that it distorts the purpose of police
departments—to maintain the peace—and damages police department's relationships with the communities they serve.
The militarization of the police, journalist and civil liberties advocate Glenn Greenwald argued in the Intercept in August
2014, "has resulted in a domestic police force that looks, thinks, and acts more like an invading and occupying military
than a community-based force to protect the public."

Dressing and equipping police officers like warriors, opponents argue, warps their perception of the people they are sworn
to serve and protect. "When you arm police like soldiers and outfit them with military weapons and train them on military
tactics and tell them they're fighting a war," Radley Balko, author of the book Rise of the Warrior Cop, told ABC News in
August 2014, "they're going to start seeing themselves as soldiers, and seeing the people they serve less as citizens with
rights and more as potential threats, and that's what we're seeing."

The tragic effects of the militarization of police, critics contend, fall most heavily on members of minority groups. "[O]ur
police's most aggressive tactics are doing disproportionate damage to communities of color," American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) counsel Kara Danksy wrote for CNN's website in August 2014. "Dumping weapons and equipment
designed for overseas combat into local neighborhoods is only adding dangerous fuel to the fire of aggressive policing….
It's time for the federal government to stop financing a siege on communities of color."

Opponents hold that recruiting police officers with videos of police in military scenarios and then training them in
military-style techniques will undermine any hope of instituting community policing, which, they insist, has long proven
to be law enforcement's most effective method for creating safer neighborhoods. Karl Bicker, a senior policy analyst at
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), an office within the Justice Department, argued in a December 2013
article on the department's website:

Police chiefs and sheriffs may want to ask themselves—if after hiring officers in the spirit of adventure, who
have been exposed to action oriented police dramas since their youth, and sending them to an academy
patterned after a military boot camp, then dressing them in black battle dress uniforms and turning them
loose in a subculture steeped in an "us versus them" outlook toward those they serve and protect, while
prosecuting the war on crime, war on drugs, and now a war on terrorism—is there any realistic hope of
institutionalizing community policing as an operational philosophy?

Recruiting materials have shamelessly promoted the "warrior cop" to lure young recruits, critics argue, ensuring that
officers are joining police forces for the wrong reasons. "The 'military special operations' culture—characterized by a
distinct techno-warrior garb, heavy weaponry, sophisticated technology, hyper-masculinity, and dangerous function,"
SWAT team researcher and Eastern Kentucky University criminal justice professor Peter Kraska testified before the U.S.
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on September 9, 2014, is "nothing less than
intoxicating for its participants."

Federal programs like 1033 tempt police departments to pursue perilous and unnecessary practices and embark on high-
risk, low-reward missions simply to prove that their equipment is going to good use. Kraska testified:

Only 20 years ago, forced investigative searches of private residences, using the military special operations
model employed during hostage rescues…would have been considered an extreme and unacceptable police
tactic. It is critical to recognize that these are not forced reaction situations necessitating use of force
specialists; instead they are the result of police departments choosing to use an extreme and highly
dangerous tactic, not for terrorists or hostage-takers, but for small-time drug possessors and dealers.

The militarization of police in the United States, critics claim, flouts the ideals of the founding fathers, who strongly
opposed a standing army. "Our founders saw no role for the federal government in state and local police forces," Senator
Tom Coburn (R, Oklahoma) argued in September 2014. "It's hard to see a difference between the militarized and
increasingly federalized police force we see in towns across America today, and the force that [James] Madison [chief
author of the Constitution and later U.S. president] had in mind when he said, 'a standing military force with an
overgrown executive will not long be a safe companion to liberty.'"

Conclusion

The Future of U.S. Policing

In addition to denouncing the flow of military equipment to police departments, many critics of police militarization have
called for police officers to regularly wear cameras to document SWAT raids and record their interactions with community
members. Such footage, they believe, will help reveal whether officers use excessive and unnecessary force. The federal
review of programs that provide police with military-style equipment, meanwhile, continues to go forward.

The debate over the militarization of police is intrinsically connected to the debate over whether aggressive or
community-based policing tactics are most effective in ensuring public safety. The argument over how police can best
serve local communities—with or without military-style equipment—will continue to evolve.

Discussion Questions

1) Do federal programs that provide military-style equipment to police forces help ensure public safety or do they inhibit
it? Explain your answer.
2) Many observers have argued that adopting military-type weapons, dress, and vehicles makes police officers adopt a
"soldier mentality." What are the differences between soldiers and police? What are the similarities? How might a
militaristic mentality affect the interaction between police and residents in a community?

3) Should police wear cameras to record all interactions with community members? Why or why not?

4) Why have SWAT raids become more common in recent decades?

5) Research your county or local police department and see whether it was the beneficiary of 1033 or a similar program.
Write a report analyzing whether you think military-style equipment in police possession is—or would be—beneficial to
your community.

Additional Sources
Additional information about the militarization of police can be found in the following sources:

Balko, Radley. The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. New York: PublicAffairs,
2013.

Reppetto, Thomas. American Police, A History: 1945–2012. New York: Enigma Books, 2012.

Keywords

For further information about the ongoing debate over the militarization of police, search for the following words and
terms in electronic databases and other publications:

Defense Department 1033 program

Ferguson, Missouri
Jose Guerena
Mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs)
SWAT raids

Bibliography
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September 10, 2014, www.nytimes.com.

———. "War Gear Flows to Police Departments." New York Times, June 8, 2014, www.nytimes.com.

"Cops or Soldiers?" Economist, March 22, 2014, www.economist.com.

Dansky, Kara. "The Real Reason Ferguson Has Military Weapons." CNN.com, August 19, 2014, www.cnn.com.

Grossman, Andrew. "Senators Criticize Growing Militarization of Local Police Departments." Wall Street Journal,
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Harwood, Matthew. "To Terrify and Occupy." Huffington Post, August 14, 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com.

Lowry, Rich. "The Grossly Exaggerated Militarization-of-Police Critique of Ferguson." National Review, August 18,
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Schulz, David. "A Long, Powerful History: How We Militarized the Police." Minnesota Post, August 27, 2014,
www.minnpost.com.

Topaz, Jonathan. "Critics Slam 'Militarization' of Police." Politico, August 14, 2014, www.politico.com.

Contact Information
Information on how to contact organizations that either are mentioned in the discussion of the militarization of police or
can provide additional information on the subject is listed below:

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

125 Broad St. 18th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10004
Telephone: (212) 549-2500
Internet: www.aclu.org

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)

145 N. St. N.E.
Washington, D.C.20530
Telephone: (800) 421-6770
Internet: www.cops.usdoj.gov

National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA)

P.O. Box 797
Doylestown, Pa. 18901
Telephone: (800) 279-9127
Internet: ntoa.org

Citation Information:

“Militarization of the Police.” Issues & Controversies, Infobase, 21 Nov. 2014,

icof.infobase.com/articles/QXJ0aWNsZVRleHQ6MTY0MjQ=. Accessed 21 Jan. 2023.

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