Rise of the Warrior Cop
The last days of colonialism taught America's revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But according to investigative reporter Radley Balko, over the last several decades, America's cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other-an enemy. Today's armored-up policemen are a far cry from the constables of early America. The unrest of the 1960s brought about the invention of the SWAT unit-which in turn led to the debut of military tactics in the ranks of police officers. Nixon's War on Drugs, Reagan's War on Poverty, Clinton's COPS program, the post-9/11 security state under Bush and Obama: by degrees, each of these innovations expanded and empowered police forces, always at the expense of civil liberties. And these are just four among a slew of reckless programs. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians' ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier.
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- There's an entire book on this topic if you want to read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop
- You can ignore the racial angle and still come away with the criticism that the culture among most police departments in American is VERY antagonistic towards the populations they serve. I could bang on about my personal experience but it's not super relevant here.
Just look at any major police scandal in the past decade. There's almost always an attempt at a cover up, and always a ton of officers that knew about it and did nothing. No matter what the crime or infraction is, police protect their own and circle up in the face of even the most benign criticism. There's a great book called I Got a Monster [1] that details Baltimore's infamous gun task force, and it's shocking how many people knew what they were up to for years. People who look the other way aren't good apples. For a bit of history, Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop [2] does a great job detailing the growth of us vs. them thinking among police nationally.
> It can be VERY hard to do the right thing, especially when it means it's the last thing you get to do (before you lose your job).
Police are almost NEVER fired. The number one goal of police unions is to prevent any firing for any reason ever, and they are very successful at that.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Got-Monster-Americas-Corrupt-Police/d...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Ameri...
- > Just like NSA spying is an outgrowth of the war on terror
A lot of the framework and the beginnings of domestic spying really started after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The underpinnings of the Patriot Act were originally passed then.
> war on drugs (which was itself an outgrowth of anti-black racism)
I think this is an oversimplification of the history of the war on drugs. Racism is certainly a facet, but the association of drugs use with counter culture and the anti war movement are just as important. Soaring crime rates in the 70s and 80s are also related to the war on drugs. There were also cultural and political incentives to ratchet it up in the name of :doing something". Average people of every racial and economic background were concerned about drugs in the early 80s. Boiling it down to any one thing really does a disservice to complexity of the issue. Radley Balko's "The Rise of the Warrior Cop"[1] has a lot of good historical information on the topic.
[1]https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Ameri...
- Community based policing, cops on neighborhood patrols, has been on the decline for years.
Police funding is now more often used to to acquire military weapons/hardware.
"Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces" is a highly recommended study of this problem.
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Ameri...
- If you are curious about the trend of the militarization of the police I'd suggest reading "The Rise of the Warrior Cop" by Radley Balko.
One thing the book points out is that since the first SWAT team was formed in LA back in the 1960s, even law enforcement agencies with as few as 28 officers have SWAT teams. One of the things the author attributes this to is a "me too" attitude where one department hears another local agency has a SWAT team with special equipment and weapons. Somewhat jealously the agency decides they need one too. Even if the population they are serving has no history of the kinds of violent and/or dangerous crimes that normally require SWAT.
- It shouldn't be shocking for anyone who was paying attention. There is a good book about related issues by Radley Balco called Rise of the Warrior Cop. Published in 2013. Unlike many comments here and on other websites it's not hysterical, or hyperbolic or contaminated with self-referential post-modernist bullshit. It is a sober and factual analysis of how American police became what it is right now. It's not an easy read, but it's a must-read for anyone who wants to have a reasonable picture of the problem.
The public notion of good policing and the actual practices police departments follow have been diverging for several decades (if they ever converged). What we're seeing right now is not some inexplicable increase in bad behavior or cops deliberately targeting journalists. For modern American police this is just business as usual, except the volume of deployment is significantly higher than in the past few decades and the visibility is much higher as well.
Edit:
There is a flip side to this coin. When you have a systemic problem of this scale, you should be cautious about making simplistic (especially moral) judgements about individuals in the system. When someone's training, incentives, position in the community and even equipment nudge them towards bad actions, even decent people will routinely do bad things.
