Criminology, Law & Society

"The LII (Legal Information Institute) is a small not-for-profit group that believes everyone should be able to read and understand the laws that govern them, without cost. LII values accuracy and objectivity.

"The Defense Logistics Agency’s 1033 Program allows transfer of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies."

"The Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO) or LESO Program, facilitates 10 US Code 2576a, which originated from the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1997. This law allows transfer of excess Department of Defense property (equipment) that might otherwise be destroyed to law enforcement agencies across the United States and its territories..."

"SWAT responds upon the request of the Incident Commander (IC) to barricade/hostage episodes, and/or suicide intervention, as well as initiate service of high risk warrants for all Department entities. The Incident Commander shall request SWAT when at a barricaded or hostage incident when the suspect is probably armed; the suspect is believed to have been involved in a criminal act or is a significant threat to the lives and safety of the public and/or police; the suspect is in a position of advantage, affording cover and concealment or is contained in an open area and the presence or approach of police officers could precipitate an adverse reaction by the suspect; and, the suspect refuses to submit to arrest."

"SWAT is a specialized support unit that responds to extremely high-risk incidents posing a tremendous threat to officers and/or citizens. These types of incidents are so hazardous, complex or unusual they typically exceed the capabilities of first responders or investigative units. SWAT is capable of handling acts of terrorism, barricaded suspects, hostage situations, riots, dignitary protection, and high-risk warrant service, as well as the protection of lives and property. "

"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."

"Over the past two decades the evolution of the security landscape in Western Europe (and elsewhere) has been characterized by an increasing blurring of internal and external security. Many contemporary security challenges – such as international terrorism and transnational organized crime – no longer neatly fit into one category, as they typically have both internal and external dimensions. For security institutions, especially the police and the military, this means that their roles have increasingly converged, for example with military forces becoming more involved in domestic security, or traditionally domestic security forces, such as the police, playing an increasingly prominent role..."

"Few areas in American law enforcement are characterized by the frequency, quality, and magnitude of innovations as the advances found in tactical operations. To introduce new equipment and methods during an actual operation without adequate instruction, assessment, preparation, and practice not only invites failure but also subjects an entire organizational chain of command to preventable criticism and avoidable litigation. The purpose of this manual is to introduce police instructional personnel to the legal, administrative, and safety issues associated with this very critical area of police training. Its purpose is not to create a cookbook approach to tactical training or even develop a better instructional cadre but rather to present the guidelines to mitigate litigation both at the individual and organizational levels through a proactive approach to the occasional criticism directed toward police tactical training."

"While skill development is important in the world of law enforcement, today there appears to be a disturbing lack and understanding of history, how it impacts the present, and how it ultimately affects the future. Accordingly, the primary purpose of this book is to provide the professional SWAT officer with the appropriate historical references in order to improve the individual and overall performance of this very specialized aspect of law enforcement. The text offers analysis of significant case histories, much in the same manner as the approach to learning used by the Harvard Business School and the United States Army War College. Tactics, equipment, organizational preparedness, and operational execution are examined to identify what was successful and can be maintained or improved for future use or what was ineffective and should be avoided. "

"The increased militarization of the police in the United States has been a topic of controversy for decades, brought to the public eye in notable events such as the Los Angeles Police Department's use of battering rams in the 1980s and the siege of the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in the 1990s, among others. The issue of police militarism has been back at the forefront of criminal justice policy discussions in the wake of the militaristic police response to the protests that took place after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. This book examines the issue of militarization in a post-Ferguson environment from the perspective of those inside policing.Drawing from a variety of data-including historical analysis of newspaper articles to examine the use of firearms in policing; original data from police respondents attending the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Academy in Quantico, Virginia; interviews with police chiefs and tactical officers regarding their direct experiences; and a sample of National Academy attendees reporting on the deployment of patrol rifles in policing-this work provides a nuanced look at police militarization that will inform future conceptual discussions and empirical research into the phenomenon. "

"This edited volume examines the use of militarised responses to different forms of criminal activity, discussing the outcomes and unintended consequences. Politicians and policymakers frequently use militarised responses to look tough on crime. The deployment of armies, navies, military assets and militarised approaches can send a powerful message, but have produced mixed results. While they generate the perception that governments are actively engaged on issues of concern to the public, and in some cases have resulted in notable successes, on the downside they have frequently also increased the loss of life, exacerbated the humanitarian consequences of a particular crime and entrenched divides between security and state institutions and the criminal proponents, narrowing the possibilities for future negotiated solutions. By focusing on four different areas of criminality - wildlife crime, piracy, migration and drug trafficking - the book allows context and evidence-based conclusions to be drawn on the strategic value and commonality of responses and their outcomes"

""Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing explains how the Cold War U.S. effort to professionalize police in other countries reverberated domestically, leading to the rise of the carceral state. The book traces the history of the Office of Public Safety, the U.S. government's overseas police assistance arm tasked with countering communist insurgency in over 50 countries, and illustrates how it called upon the leading U.S. policing experts. It shows that the Office of Public Safety was a key instrument of Cold War U.S. empire, a configuration of geopolitical power that tried to escape the history of racism within the United States but remained captive to it. In following the cross-border exchanges and circulations of policing experts, Badges Without Borders reveals a hidden dimension of U.S. global power and illustrates the bureaucratic battles that empowered police to wage the Cold War in Third World countries. In turn, this group of policing experts shaped state responses to political unrest and Black freedom struggles at home, instituting more aggressive forms of racialized social control. The book reveals how central overseas projections of U.S. power were to policing tactics and technologies that shape life on American streets today"--Provided by publisher

"This Brief examines the “militarization” of law enforcement in the United States through the lens of the stakeholders primarily responsible for implementing, funding, and enacting the practice. Largely a result of policies such as the war on drugs, war on terror, and the 1033 program, there has been a gradual but dramatic rise in the use of military-grade weapons, equipment, and tactics used by police agencies across the United States. This Brief examines the level of support for various aspects of police militarization by lawmakers, police executives, and local police officers, and how their opinions may differ based upon their current position or demographic features using a series of analyses and propensity score matching techniques..."

"The purpose of this paper is to review the state of research of police militarization in the USA to explore the claim that the police are becoming more like the military, or “militarized” in order to identify gaps in the research on this topic that require further investigation."

"The events in Ferguson, MO in 2014 renewed national attention to the issue of militarization of law enforcement. Despite scrutiny from policymakers and community stakeholders, little is known regarding the public's opinion on police militarization (PM), or the factors shaping these views. This problem is magnified because individuals may support or oppose PM for a variety of reasons, but the characteristics of these supporters and opposers is currently unknown. This study aims to examine the distinct types of individuals who support or oppose PM, and the normative, instrumental, and demographic factors that distinguish within- and between-groups of supporters and opposers of PM."

"This paper examines overlooked developments in contemporary policing: the growth in the number of, and a significant shift in the character of. United States police paramilitary units (PPUs). A survey of all police departments serving cities of 50,000 people or more provides the first comprehensive national data on PPUs. Findings document a rise in the number of PPUs, an escalation in their level of activity, a normalization of these units into mainstream policing, and a direct link between PPUs and the U.S. military. These findings reflect the aggressive turn many law enforcement agencies are assuming behind the rhetoric of community and problem-oriented policing reforms."

"In recent years, the killing of suspects by police and the “militarization” of police have drawn considerable public attention, but there is little analysis of a relationship between the two. In this article, I investigate the possibility that such militarization may lead to an increase in suspect deaths using data on police receipt of surplus military equipment to measure militarization and a newly created database on suspect deaths in all fifty states quarterly from the fourth quarter of 2014 through the fourth quarter of 2016. The data consist of more than eleven thousand agency-quarter observations. I find a positive and significant association between militarization and the number of suspects killed, controlling for several other possible explanations."

"For five decades, law enforcement agencies have developed specialized units, such as Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams, for dealing with dangerous situations. In recent years, the uses of SWAT have expanded to a number of circumstances. The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing noted that improper use of SWAT may damage the publics’ relationship with police. The current study examines public support for police use of SWAT across a number of different situations, using a national sample of 702 American adults. Descriptive statistics indicate widespread support for the use of SWAT in circumstances associated with hostage situations and terror events, with lower levels of support for circumstances involving the serving of drug warrants, large-scale public events, and peaceful protests, among others. Results from a series of logistic regressions indicate that legitimacy has inconsistent effects on public support for police use of SWAT across circumstances. Implications for theory and policy are discussed."

"The increasingly visible presence of heavily armed police units in American communities has stoked widespread concern over the militarization of local law enforcement. Advocates claim militarized policing protects officers and deters violent crime, while critics allege these tactics are targeted at racial minorities and erode trust in law enforcement. Using a rare geocoded census of SWAT team deployments from Maryland, I show that militarized police units are more often deployed in communities with large shares of African American residents, even after controlling for local crime rates. Further, using nationwide panel data on local police militarization, I demonstrate that militarized policing fails to enhance officer safety or reduce local crime. Finally, using survey experiments—one of which includes a large oversample of African American respondents—I show that seeing militarized police in news reports may diminish police reputation in the mass public. In the case of militarized policing, the results suggest that the often-cited trade-off between public safety and civil liberties is a false choice."