There is no institution in society other than law enforcement, wherein the absence of it could lead to the collapse of the rule of law and society as a whole. Yet, when the ones who have sworn to protect and serve their citizens grow paranoid and wary of the suspected criminals and wrongdoers – they enhance their strength and power to combat and eradicate this threat. As beneficial as stronger law enforcement may sound, the continued strengthening of police forces through militarization will be not benevolent, but malevolent and even destructive to society worldwide. Since the 1970s, the militarization of police forces has been clear: guns used with rubber bullets and tear gas canisters have been a common occurrence during a period of civil unrest. Seeing officers armed with plate carriers and full-length automatic rifles, looking no different than special operators from armies is but a common sight today. The militarization of any governmental institution worldwide has never seen such a widespread extent.
Can you tell if these unidentified multicam-cladded operatives are the police or the military without context? (Noah Berger/AP)
Police militarization can be best described through how Prof. Peter Kraska states in a 2007 paper: “the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model.” Not only do police forces model themselves after military organizations, but they may also adopt weaponry typically allocated for military use such as APCs (armored personnel carriers).
To examine the state of affairs of police forces in regards to militarization, several countries that possess different extents of militarization can be assessed – so can the consequences of their choosing to militarize or not.
Notably, the example of the UK’s policing model is de jure (with the exception of Northern Ireland), a model that can be seen as the least militarized. It separates conventional patrol officers on the beat from qualified firearm officers, who are in far smaller quantities than conventional officers. Despite this separation that aspires to reduce the fatality rate of the police in the UK, the armed police have killed innocents on multiple occasions. Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian man suspected to be a terrorist involved in the July 7 bombings in 2005, was shot and killed by armed police, following the Metropolitan Police’s shoot-to-kill policies regarding suicide bombers, rather than the officers detaining Menezes. It can therefore be seen that the militaristic shoot-to-kill policies prove tobe detrimental to the policing actions of police in the UK, even if they are not militarized to such a great extent
The United States of America is a key example of displaying absolute failure in dealing with crime despite the single most rapid and extreme militarization of police. The phenomenon of militarization is present at both a municipal, state, and federal level, as a response to incidents such as the 1980 Norco Shootout, the 1986 FBI Miami Shootout, and the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout. However, this does not diminish the fact that terrorism also encouraged the militarization of police. After the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, local police forces across the USA rapidly established their tactical units in anticipation and deterrence of a terrorist threat, according to Radley Balko’s book “Rise of the Warrior Cop”.
Where the US Marshals may possess an almost special operations-like police tactical unit, a local sheriff’s office may also possess it. Such results are consequences of the 1033 program devised by the LESO (Law Enforcement Support Office), which legally requires the Armed Forces to transfer surplus “military-style” weapons, equipment, and vehicles to police agencies across America. It is because of this that it is not uncommon to find law enforcement officers look no different than the National Guard due to this surplus equipment. Furthermore, the cultural adoption of military elements in uniform use such as camouflage and vests only serves to exacerbate the impression of militarization.
SWAT departments, originally established to de-escalate and respond to crises, were founded as a concept to save lives rather than to take them. In contrast to the killing-oriented rules of engagement of a military unit, SWAT is to de-escalate, arrest and rescue, and use deadly force only when the situation has “escalated to the point” where it is deemed necessary as stated in a training manual for LAPD SWAT. Yet, SWAT units have transitioned from pistol-caliber submachine guns to wound and incapacitated rifles, which can kill. It canbe argued that this is an end to the means, but it is simply not worth the human cost – and drift away from less-lethal detainment and towards lethality and overwhelming firepower.
Comparison of LAPD’s SWAT equipment over the years. Al Seib/Los Angeles Times
Militarized police departments do not decrease crime, but rather increase the chance of having violent encounters with the local populace, leading to more than 1,000 being killed in the USA by law enforcement every year. In another case, despite citing that acquiring surplus equipment from the LESO, armed campus police do not decrease the fatality rate of school shootings in the USA. A 2021 study states that armed guards on campus caused 2.83 times more deaths than those without one.
The legal entity of the police force in the UK, the numerous federal, state, or local law enforcement agencies in the USA, or any branch of a government that exists to protect the people from anarchy and disorder has sworn an oath, whether it be to “never dishonor” their badge or to “serve and protect”. Militarization plays contrary to the role of the police as the “long arm of the law” – the purpose is not to oppress the criminals and intimidate the people through a show of force or use of force as an occupying force, but to serve the public and protect the people from the criminal threats that are present in any country.
Despite outcry and statistics proving its inefficiencies, the boundary that separates the military and the police will continue to fade, not only in the USA. Not only is this an issue to the Western sphere in general, but some other nations such as Mexico face the dilemma of militarization – it is a malus necessarium, where if the Mexicans do not sufficiently respond, there will be no way to fight against the cartels. The United States has seen a 34% growth in crime rate since 2020, and this provides departments to continue their militarization and explain that their means justify the ends of a reduction in the crime rate, despite no positive impact on society even with more than 40 years of police militarization historically.