The peacemaker: sheriffs with tanks.

• Author: Balko, Radley
• Position: Citings

IN MARCH the sheriff and SWAT team of Richland County, South Carolina, posed for a photo with an impressive new piece of equipment: an M113A1 armored personnel carrier. The vehicle, which moves on tank-like tracks, features a belt-fed, turreted machine gun that fires .50-caliber rounds.

The sheriff, Leon Lott, obtained the $300,000 vehicle through the 1033 program, named for a 1997 federal law streamlining the Defense Department's transfer of surplus military equipment to local police departments. Law enforcement agencies pay a nominal annual fee (Lott's paid $2,000) for access to the equipment, which they can then order at steep discounts, sometimes for free.

In addition, after 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security began offering terrorism-fighting grants to domestic police departments in places such as Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Canyon County, Idaho; and Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. The subsidies help the departments acquire military-style armored personnel carriers, which they generally use to serve drug warrants.

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Critics say the program blurs the line between the military and domestic policing, and...