The militarisation of police does not reduce crime
12 replies, posted
https://psmag.com/social-justice/militarization-of-police-does-not-reduce-crime
Pacific Standard Magazine
"Left centre bias"
"factual reporting: HIGH"
THE MILITARIZATION OF POLICE DOES NOT REDUCE CRIME
New research finds it does reduce public support for law enforcement.
New research provides evidence supporting such warnings. It finds the use of SWAT teams—perhaps the most common and visible form of militarized policing—neither reduces crime nor enhances public safety.
It reports this aggressive approach to law enforcement is disproportionately used in minority communities. And finally, it finds portraying officers in military gear decreases public support for the police.
He found "the vast majority of SWAT deployments occur in connection with non-emergency scenarios, predominately to serve search warrants." What's more, these teams "are more often deployed in areas with high concentrations of African-Americans, even after adjusting for local crime rates."
I can't say I blame people becoming distrustful, seeing how some of that equipment is being deployed. It's one thing to give police riot gear, it's another to give them mine-resistant ambush protected trucks and ride around town in full gear like they're an occupying force.
Militarization to an extent was the right call. Allowing officers specialize in using rifles so they can give as good as they get, but I can't help to think, with this article especially in mind, it's gone incredibly overboard.
Well, yeah, the militarization of police in itself doesn't reduce crime. They're just better equipped to deal with the already existing crime.
We enjoy second amendment rights and many hold them as the most important right, in my mind a militarized police is almost tradeoff you have to accept if everyone can own as many guns as they want and almost any type. The same type of people who will laugh at others for saying an AR15 is "scary" because its matte black and has extra attachments will go right around and say the police are too militarized because they're given access to firearms any civilian can own (and potentially try to kill them with) and body armor.
"Perhaps most importantly, he reports "there is no evidence that acquiring a SWAT team lowers crime, or promotes officer safety."
I also find this hard to believe. Being given advanced training and protective gear doesn't make your officers safer?
No question about it making the police more threatening though. I don't agree with the police's current tactics, their training, their boy's club type mentality, or pretty much anything how modern law enforcement is done in the
U.S., and obviously an increasingly militarized police is a scary combo with the current trend of this administration, but this article just feels paper thin to me.
A bigger problem I see is when news stories of small town police forces that are entirely disbanding their local presence because they have zero funding, old squad cars, and ancient safety equipment, while other departments are given military hardware and armored vehicles. There are so many more problems with U.S. police other than "they look scary". Basically, mixed feelings here.
That bit about small town police gets me as well. Even some biggers forces have a lot of trouble maintaining their old equipment & gathering new, as well as actually having sufficient manpower to begin with. It's as if the resource prioritization is well haywire.
I was always under the impression that the justification for the APCs and such was for the safety of the police, not to womehow be more effective at stopping crime.
as for the funding issue blame conservatives who don't want to pay for anything. I live in a fairly low tax place and it took my school system basically forcing the issue through budgetary quackery to build new elementary schools and it took us 10 years to pass a funding leavy. they were A-OK with having their kids in a leaking freezing asbestos filled shithole as long as it didn't raise their taxes .72c a year. those old schools all fell down within a year or two of being emptied. I can believe some rural town would refuse to fund police levies enough that their police force has nothing and decides to disband
It's basically a rolling barricade for SWAT teams, and a community outreach tool.
My county uses their Bearcat to go do outreach in the parks around the area, bring it to parades and events, and stuff like that. It's a pretty cool vehicle, kids want to actually go see it, and it honestly probably does more good than harm in that regard alone.
I grew up in a small town (~2000 people). We for some reason were given an APC by the military, it was pretty much exclusively used for Parades and such. As much as I dislike the militarization of the police, it was a fucking cool vehicle
I don’t think “militarization of the police” necessarily just referrs to their equipment but also their doctrines and tactics. It doesn’t really matter to me if they have scary looking guns, body armor, APCs or whatever, but what does matter is the disturbing trend of departments and officers looking at their communities with an “us vs them” mentality.
absolutely hit the nail on the head. "police militarization" has nothing to do with the equipment the police own, it's the relaxing of the threshold wherein that equipment becomes acceptable to use. sending in no-knock SWAT teams before a crime is even confirmed, peaceful and compliant protesters surrounded with MRAPs - that's what militarization really is. the practice of a flashbang getting thrown into a crib, not the flashbang itself.
Several small towns in my state actually closed their police stations to save money be recieving free coverage from the State Police, after all the state can't just say "no" and never send officers over there. Last I heard the Government was considering ways to discourage that.
my town does this but only from like 2 to 6 am, there's a single state trooper that patrols around (so if you intend to burgle something the trains that block the road come at 4:50am)
The article doesn't make any mention of that though and again just focuses on the surface level stuff like "they look scary".
And the police force has had an us v.s. them mentality for a long time, this isn't anything new unfortunately.
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