This article makes one of the more cogent points about police being supplied with surplus or retired military gear. Military gear doesnt come with military de-escalation training, and there are no laws or regulations on exactly what kind of training law enforcement receives or is required to receive-- its a patchwork all across the nation with little or no standardization. Did you know that the most widely used interview technique in law enforcement today-- the Reid Technique-- has been shown in independent studies to result in a 25% false confession rate? That means that on average, 1 in every 4 people interviewed/interrogated using this technique are subject to giving a false confession. (The reason we dont see 1 in 4 people in prison being falsely convicted is because generally there is enough evidence to put only most likely guilty suspects in an interview room... all it takes is a little sloppy investigative work, or ambiguous evidence to land an innocent person in that room though) So why is it that such a technique is so widely used? Because its well promoted and because there is no impetus for law enforcement to only use training thats proven to be effective scientifically. False confessions serve political law enforcement posts because they result in convictions which eases the publics mind and makes them feel like their tax dollars are being put to good use and keeping them safe. And there is no standards body, no regulation, no anything other than the off chance that whoever is in charge of a given police force or department is going to do the due diligence on their own and ensure that their officers are well equipped to handle whatever they face. And then you have to add in budget constraints, which is one of the more common reasons that police forces have become increasingly militarized to begin with. When you have a choice between pinning a badge onto another officer or turning down a retiring military vehicle and putting that same money into BUYING a non-military vehicle for the force, what exactly are you going to do? The smart money is to take the free or cheap military vehicle and hire that extra officer to put on patrol. That doesnt mean its the right answer, it just means its the most right answer that a law enforcement leader can make given the constraints placed upon him/her. Then you add in the subtle psychological effect of you are what you wear. If you typically wear jeans and a tattered t-shirt, but then put on a 3-piece suit, you may notice that you tend to stand a little taller and act a little more professional and mature. The police are human too-- theyre no different. When they put on a police uniform, they become one unified force. It increases their likelihood of backing each other up and standing behind each other. The physical uniform becomes a psychologically unifying force for the officers. But the flip side of that is that when they gear up in SWAT gear or, even worse, camouflage riot or combat gear, you take on the mentality of a military force rather than a police force. When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. And then you have the escalation effect of what looks like a military force moving into an area in formation, and what you induce in the public is a psychological response to a military occupation or invasion rather than a law enforcement peacekeeping response to criminal activity or civil unrest. Its the wrong approach. If the 60s and 70s peace and civil rights protests, or the Occupy Wall Street movements, or the response to the Cliven Bundy thing in Nevada, or the assault on the Branch Davidian complex in Waco didnt teach us that, then were not paying attention. I personally dont see anything *inherently* evil or foreboding about police forces using retired military surplus vehicles. If you look at the political landscape of the U.S. today, we have a public that has been arming itself to the teeth over the past decade or two, so its not necessarily out of line to me for the police to be equipping themselves to deal with the situation should the need arise. Statistically, quite a few of those people whove amassed themselves a serious arsenal do not have the interests of the nation or its people at heart even if they claim to publicly. Look no further than Amanda and Jared Miller for examples of this. Their public claims were that theyre looking out for our freedoms-- that they were on our side, that they cared about the Constitution, that they hold the same values that the rest of America holds. But I really dont think most Americans hold the view that we should be walking into pizza places and shooting cops unaware while theyre on break and eating lunch, or fleeing to Walmarts and shooting innocent civilians as part of some imaginary war against tyranny or the man. No, that is what sociopaths and narcissists with toxic anti-government views believe-- it isnt what the vast majority of Americans believe, even if they are upset or in disagreement over things like the Patriot Act or militarized police forces or encroachments on their rights and freedoms. The soap box and the ballot box come before the ammo box. And in my view, when the soap box fails, examine your stance more critically and look for holes, then try again. When the ballot box fails, you dont reach for the ammo box, because the electorate has spoken and the democratic process has done what it was designed to do. Yours was the minority view. Your voice was heard, your vote was counted, so analyze, revise, and try again. The ammo box is reserved for when every phase of each of these things has been totally undermined repeatedly. We have never had that in this country, and its unlikely that we will-- we have too many people watching to ensure it doesnt. So while I think that at least some larger police forces having some limited military style equipment available to them SHOULD THE NEED ARISE is prudent, there is absolutely a disconnect between their having that equipment and lacking even a basic understanding of the ramifications of actually putting that equipment to use effectively and appropriately. That needs to change, and it needs to change very quickly and decisively. Seriously, think about that. Look at how decisively this equipment and these tactics have been deployed by various law enforcement agencies around the country in the past decade. Now look again at how the issues above have been dealt with? Youd be hard pressed if youre an honest person to apply the label of decisive action to the latter. And to me, that-- and not the equipment itself-- is the real problem facing us and our law enforcement officers and agencies today. The underlying psychological effect of all of this equipping and training and lack of standardization is the loss of de-escalating tactics and processes in favor of a hard line military style approach to crime and civil unrest. What proof of this do we have? Where is the negotiator in Ferguson wearing a suit and tie? There isnt one. It doesnt even appear to have been a possibly contingency. For shame. This is how America is undone.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 00:40:01 +0000
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