The militarization of U.S. domestic policing.

AuthorHall, Abigail R.
PositionEssay

Can government simultaneously be empowered and constrained? This "paradox of government" is the central question of constitutional political economy (see Buchanan 1975; Brennan and Buchanan 1985; Weingast 1995; Gordon 2002). In order for a government to function, individuals must allow governing forces to control different aspects of their lives. The danger in granting such powers, however, is that the government may abuse this authority and plunder the citizens.

The common solution is to establish checks and balances on government to prevent such abuses. History has demonstrated, however, that effective checks on government power are elusive. Nazi Germany; Idi Amin's regime in Uganda; the dictatorships of Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, and Pol Pot; and the present-day Syrian regime are but a few examples of the tragic consequences of unconstrained government power. Beyond these examples, the poorest countries in the world today suffer from the actions of rapacious states, most of which are largely unconstrained in their predation against citizens.

One reason governments can exploit their citizens effectively is that they main-rain a monopoly or near monopoly of military force. The concentration of military power, with its weaponry, organizational structure, and tactics, serves as the ultimate tool of government abuse. The threat of violent force raises the cost of deviations from government decree and can be used to repress citizens. As per the paradox of government, this repression leads to the central concern that although force, in theory, can serve the function of protecting citizens from threats to their person and property, government can also use force to undermine the very rights government is supposed to protect. Taking this crucial concern as our starting point in this article, we develop the political economy of the militarization of domestic policing. We identify the conditions and mechanisms through which a "protective state," in which the government utilizes its monopoly on force to protect citizens' rights, devolves into a "predatory state" that undermines the rights it is supposed to enforce.

Our analysis focuses on the United States, where a series of laws has attempted, at least in spirit, to draw a clear distinction between domestic policing and the military functions of government. This tradition is grounded in the fundamental differences between these two functions. State and local law enforcement are charged with upholding domestic laws that protect the rights of citizens. Although they "combat" crime within their jurisdictions, their goal is not to physically annihilate criminals, but to maintain public order and "keep the peace." They are to protect the rights of the citizenry, both victims and criminals alike. In the realm of domestic policing, the police are, in principle, trained to resort to violence only as matter of last resort. Military forces, in contrast, are trained to engage in combat with the goal of destroying an external enemy deemed a threat to the rights of domestic citizens (U.S. Department of the Army 1962, 1). Typically operating in hostile environments, soldiers are trained to kill an adversary. The fundamental difference between policing and military functions is perhaps best highlighted by comparing the well-known Los Angeles Police Department motto, "To protect and serve [citizens]," with the U.S. Soldier's Creed, "I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat" (qtd. in Rizer and Hartman 2011).

Despite historical efforts to make laws that enforce this distinction, during the past four decades domestic policing in the United States has become increasingly militarized. Domestic law enforcement has taken on the characteristics of the armed forces by engaging in military-style training, acquiring military weapons, and utilizing military tactics in everyday operations. To illustrate this militarization, consider the number of state and local law enforcement agencies that have acquired and maintained police paramilitary units (PPUs) or special weapons and tactics (SWAT) units. In 1982, 59 percent of police departments employed a PPU. By 1990, 78 percent of departments had a PPU, and by 1995, the portion had grown to 89 percent (Kraska and Kappeler 1997, 6). Police departments of all sizes around the country have obtained and maintained hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military equipment, ranging from M-16 assault rifles, riot gear, and body armor to tanks, grenade launchers, and armored vehicles. Further, the use of wire tapping, the examination of financial and other personal records without judicial clearance, and other violations of personal liberties that were once unimaginable are no longer uncommon practices among domestic police.

The militarization of domestic policing in the United States coincided with the onset of two ongoing "wars": the "war on drugs," which began in earnest in the 1980s, and the "war on terror," which assumed much greater dimensions in the early 2000s. Like any other war, these conflicts utilize military personnel, equipment, and tactics to combat and eradicate real and perceived enemies. Because they are carried out both internationally and domestically, they have had the effect of transforming the culture and behavior of domestic police. Instead of a maintaining a focus on "keeping the peace," many police have assumed the characteristics of soldiers and have adopted a militaristic strategy in their domestic activities. As the paradox of government suggests, these changes may inspire fear that the progressive militarization of domestic policing will lead to the abuse of force and power. Indeed, examples of such abuses abound. There are hundreds of reports of police "no-knock" raids and other tactics that resulted in the injury or death of unarmed, nonviolent, and innocent civilians (Cooper 2004; Balko 2006; Brown 2010; Lodge 2011).

In this article, we use the tools of political economy to explain how the line between domestic police forces and the military in the United States has blurred over time. In doing so, we explain the erosion of rules intended to separate military and policing functions permanently. Our analysis contributes to several strands of literature. First, we contribute to the literature on the role of rules in constraining abuses of government power by exploring how rules that constrain the use of military power can be eroded or circumvented over time. Second, we contribute to the literature on the political economy of crises (Higgs 1987, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2012; Congleton 2005; Coyne 2011) by demonstrating how crises may lead to the erosion of rules separating domestic policing from military functions. Finally, we contribute to the small but growing literature on the militarization of domestic police in the United States (Kraska and Kappeler 1997; Haggerty and Ericson 1999; Lutterbeck 2004; Balko 2006). Although these works explore the magnitude of the growth of militarization and the ways in which this growth occurs, none of them has examined why and how such changes occurred. Our analysis fills this gap.

The Political Economy of Militarization

The militarization of domestic policing may occur directly or indirectly. Direct militarization occurs when governments utilize their military forces domestically to control and repress citizens. Recent civil conflicts in Libya and Syria provide examples of direct militarization in that these countries' respective governments deployed the military to attempt to repress citizens in order to maintain their grip on power. In this scenario, constraints demarcating policing and military functions are either ineffective or absent.

Indirect militarization occurs when domestic police forces acquire military characteristics over time. Instead of performing their standard function of enforcing laws to protect property, police begin proactively to seek criminals and to use military strategy, weaponry, and tactics (for example, no-knock raids, counter-terrorism operations, and so forth). Effective constraints ideally exist to prevent the blurring of police and military functions. However, political economy explains how constraints can erode over time owing to the nature of the political process through which policing and military activities are carried out.

To begin to understand this process, we must first appreciate government bureaucracies' inherent tendencies. Existing literature indicates that in the absence of profit and loss, success in bureaucracies is measured by the size of discretionary budgets and the number of subordinates (Niskanen 1971, 1975; Migue and Belanger 1974). The result is that even though government agencies do not vie for profit through private markets, stiff competition occurs in regard to the distribution of a given pool of resources. The possibility of securing a windfall profit creates incentives for bureaus to engage in intense rent seeking to secure as much of the available budgetary pie as possible.

One result of this tendency is "mission creep," whereby bureaus attempt to expand their portfolio of activities to increase the size of their budgets and the number of personnel employed. Through expansion of the scale and scope of their activities, bureaucrats attempt to signal to other parts of government and to the public that the agency is engaged in the provision of crucial services. Functionaries then use this expansion to justify requests for additional funding and employees. Just as mission creep signals the public and the government that a bureau's work is "relevant," exhausting a bureau's budget also sends an important signal. By spending its entire budget, a bureau signals specifically that it needs additional resources in future periods to accomplish its increasing portfolio of "crucial" activities.

These characteristics of government bureaus matter in the context of our...

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