POLICING THROUGH SUBSIDIZED FIREPOWER: AN ASSESSMENT OF RATIONAL CHOICE AND MINORITY THREAT EXPLANATIONS OF POLICE PARTICIPATION IN THE 1033 PROGRAM*

• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Author: TRENT STEIDLEY,DAVID M. RAMEY
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12193
• Date: 01 November 2018

POLICING THROUGH SUBSIDIZED FIREPOWER:

AN ASSESSMENT OF RATIONAL CHOICE AND

MINORITY THREAT EXPLANATIONS OF POLICE

PARTICIPATION IN THE 1033 PROGRAM∗

DAVID M. RAMEY1and TRENT STEIDLEY2

1Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University

2Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Denver

KEYWORDS: police, militarization, minority threat, economic threat, social control

There is a popular belief that the use of military equipment can improve police efforts

at social control. Recent protests and riots across the country, however, have piqued

public concern about racial disparities in law enforcement and the acquisition and use

of military equipment by police in the United States. By using data from the Depart-

ment of Defense’s 1033 Program, we conduct an agency-level analysis to assess the

validity of rational choice arguments and minority threat explanations of police par-

ticipation in the 1033 Program. Our results reveal that higher violent crime rates and

lower drug arrest rates increase law enforcement participation in the 1033 Program.

Participation in the 1033 Program, however, is also a function of minority threat, with

the functional form of minority threat varying across models predicting 1033 partic-

ipation and the value of materiel acquired by successful departments. Specifically, a

curvilinear relationship exists between the relative size of the Black population and

involvement in the 1033 Program, and an exponential relationship between the rela-

tive size of the Black and Hispanic populations and the value of property departments

receive annually from the 1033 Program.

Police use of force has been receiving increased public scrutiny in the United States

recently. One example is the attention given law enforcement agencies (LEAs) acquiring

military equipment, enabling police to deploy force with armored vehicles, aircraft, and

automatic weapons (Balko, 2013). Criminologists and criminal justice scholars contend

that the acquisition of such military gear; the growth of paramilitary police units (PPUs)

or Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams; and the adoption of military terminol-

ogy to describe domestic crime problems exemplify the militarization of law enforce-

ment (Balko, 2013; Kraska, 2007). Indeed, domestic law enforcement has increasingly

patterned its appearance and strategies after the military and military conflict (Kraska,

∗Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online

Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/crim.2018.56.issue-4/issuetoc.

Preliminary findings from this research were presented at the 2015 annual meeting of the American

Society of Criminology in Washington, DC. We would like to thank Ryan King for helpful critiques

on a previous draft.

Direct correspondence to David M. Ramey, Department of Sociology and Criminology,

414 Oswald Tower, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (e-mail:

dmr45@psu.edu).

C2018 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12193

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 56 Number 4 812–856 2018 812

EXPLANATIONS OF POLICE MILITARIZATION 813

2001). Although journalists, policy makers, and scholars are paying more attention to the

potential consequences of police obtaining and using military gear, the reasons why de-

partments acquire and use such equipment remain elusive.

To assess these patterns, we examine factors associated with participation in the

Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Defense Logistics Agency 1033 Program, one of the

primary sources of military equipment for law enforcement (Dansky, 2014; Defense

Logistics Agency, 2016a; Endebak, 2014; Grasso, 2014). In doing so, we draw from

criminological and sociological theories of rational public choice and minority threat.

Rational public choice theories posit that police acquire and use military equipment

not only as a reaction to high crime rates but also in response to the wars on drugs

and terrorism, which have changed the nature of policing (Bove and Gavrilova, 2017;

Campbell and Campbell, 2009, 2016; Harris et al., 2017). A parallel argument contends

that law enforcement priorities reflect the desires of politically and socially powerful

majorities in society (Blalock, 1967), suggesting that the acquisition and use of military

equipment is a response to growing minority populations viewed as threatening to the

majority’s social order (Ajilore, 2015; Balko, 2013; Meeks, 2006).

To date, research on the use of military equipment and tactics by police has been fo-

cused on a few national surveys, case studies, and ethnographic work; researchers have

not explicitly addressed the role of racial and ethnic group relations in the acquisition

of military equipment. Other research findings, however, have demonstrated a potential

for social factors to influence police militarization by way of modern “tough-on-crime”

initiatives, which disproportionally impact socially marginalized populations (Alexander,

2012; Balko, 2013; Beckett, 1999; Wacquant, 2009). Consequently, we draw from mul-

tiple criminological and sociological perspectives to conduct one of the first nationwide

ecological studies on the acquisition of military equipment in the United States at the

LEA level. To explore our research questions, we take advantage of yearly agency-level

data on the value of military equipment obtained by police departments from the DoD’s

1033 Program to assess varying explanations for the annual changes in the value of mili-

tary equipment obtained by LEAs. Our results reveal that rational choice explanations,

reflected in local violent crime rates and county drug arrests, partially account for law en-

forcement participation in the 1033 Program. Participation in the 1033 Program, however,

is also a function of minority threat as the relative size of the Black and Hispanic popu-

lations predict involvement in the 1033 Program in a way that is consistent with minority

threat expectations (Blalock, 1967). These findings for 1033 Program participation may

indicate that police militarization is influenced by minority threat explanations indepen-

dent of factors associated with rational public choice.

POLICE MILITARIZATION AND THE 1033 PROGRAM

Policing is often described as a quasi-military institution, relying on military ideals and

trappings such as formal ranks, uniforms, discipline, structures, equipment, and culture

(Bittner, 1970; Jermier and Berkes, 1979). Although criminologists and criminal justice

scholars have debated the appropriateness or usefulness of using the military as a pro-

fessional model for law enforcement (see Cowper, 2000; den Heyer, 2014; Waddington,

1987, 1993; cf. Buerger, 2000; Jefferson, 1993, 1987; Kappeler and Kraska, 2015), many

American politicians, law enforcement professionals, and average citizens assume that

the emulation of military traditions, tactics, chain of command, culture, and equipment

814 RAMEY & STEIDLEY

can supplement and improve police efficacy (Bove and Gavrilova, 2017; Campbell and

Campbell, 2009, 2016; Harris et al., 2017; Phillips, 2016; Turner and Fox, 2017). To assess

empirically how police may or may not be adopting or emulating such militaristic prac-

tices, however, as well as to assess the effect of such practices on police work, we must be

clear about what is meant specifically by the term police militarization.

Peter Kraska defined militarization as a process of “arming, organizing, planning, train-

ing for, threatening, and sometimes implementing violent conflict” (2007: 503). Milita-

rization itself is an extension of the underlying ideology of militarism, which is “a set of

beliefs, values, and assumptions that stress the use of force and threat of violence as the

most appropriate and efficacious means to solve problems” (Kraska, 2007: 503). Kraska

(2007) also theorized four dimensions of militarization in police work: 1) the material use

of military technology; 2) the cultural use of military language, values, and style; 3) the

use of military organization principles to manage police work; and 4) the use of military

tactics and principles to conduct police work. This four-dimensional framework is useful

for scholars because “police militarization” has been written about in several synony-

mous terms (i.e., militarization or paramilitarization), yet applied across dissimilar con-

cepts and activities within the law enforcement profession, such as organizational struc-

tures, culture, and management styles (Buerger, 2000; Cowper, 2000; den Heyer, 2014;

Kappeler and Kraska, 2015; Kraska, 1996; Kunselman, Vito, and Walsh, 2013) and the ac-

quisition and use of military equipment and tactics in police work (Bove and Gavrilova,

2017; Delehanty et al., 2017; Kraska and Kappeler, 1997; Harris et al., 2017; McQuoid and

Vitt, 2017; Phillips, 2016; Phillips, Wheeler, and Kim, 2016; Radil, Dezzani, and McAden,

2017).

Even though Kraska’s (2007) four-dimensional framework offers a comprehensive un-

derstanding of police militarization as a sociological phenomenon, we focus our study

most heavily on the first dimension: the material use of military technology and equip-

ment. Specifically, we explore the determinants of police acquisition of military-grade

communications and transportation equipment, military fatigues, firearms, and ordi-

nance preferred by modern militaries (i.e., materiel; Bove and Gavrilova, 2017; Bieler,

2016; Harris et al., 2017; Insler, McMurrey, and McQuoid, 2016; Kraska and Kappeler,

1997; Phillips, 2016). Our focus on this first dimension is motivated by the fact that

such materiel makes LEAs more capable of participating (and dominating) in violent

confrontations, which is a fundamental aspect of Kraska’s (2007) conceptualization of

militarization.

For LEAs in the United States, a popular source for acquiring such military equip-

ment and technology is the DoD’s 1033 Program (Dansky, 2014; Endebak, 2014; Grasso,

2014; Harris et al., 2017; Radil, Dezzani, and McAden, 2017). The 1033 Program origi-

nated with the National Defense Authorization Act of 1990 and, under several different

titles, has provided LEAs military equipment warehoused to storage (for a maximum

of 2 weeks) by the DoD. Although scholars and journalists have fixated on the combat

equipment (including uniforms, body armor, firearms, radios, night-vision goggles, mine-

resistant armored protected vehicles or MRAPs, and aircraft), the 1033 Program also

provides materiel such as survival gear, medical utensils, and office furniture and sup-

plies. Researchers have found that some LEAs may take advantage of office supplies and

other noncombat materiel to offset policing costs (Bruce et al., 2017), whereas others may

use combat materiel for law enforcement efforts (Bove and Gavrilova, 2017; Harris et al.,

2017).