The BBC has a bit on the militarisation (what, Brits don’t like the letter Z?) of the US police:

Professor Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year.

[snip]

Dr Kraska believes there has been an explosion of units in smaller towns and cities, where training and operational standards may not be as high as large cities – a growth he attributes to “the hysteria” of the country’s war on drugs.

[snip]

An NTOA study of 759 Swat team deployments across the US, found half were for warrant service and a third for incidents where suspects had barricaded themselves in a building – 50 were for hostage situations.

When criminology professor David Klinger looked at 12 years of data on Swat teams in 1998, he also found the most common reason for calling out teams was serving warrants, but that the units used deadly force during warrant service only 0.4% of the time.

There was a time in this country where, when faced with arresting someone, police would cowboy-up and head over to the suspect’s door. They would then knock and announce themselves. Now, thanks to the advent of indoor plumbing and the fact you may flush your stash, the police often send in their SWAT teams, complete with GI Joe gear and ninja masks. And it’s not a matter of a low percentage of deadly force, it’s about whether or not deaths of have increased. Ask Anthony Diotaiuto or these folks. Well, you can’t. They’re all dead.

And this quote from the piece struck a chord:

The problem is that when you talk about the war on this and the war on that, and police officers see themselves as soldiers, then the civilian becomes the enemy.

Ayup.

Posted in uncategorized on March 22nd, 2006 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |