We previously did a piece on the US military’s new weapons systems and military spending. In that article, I mentioned the US police forces having the 3rd largest military budget in the world. In today’s article, we’re going to dive deeper into that police budget, the ramping up of giving police forces military equipment, and the effects this militarization has on our society.
It’s on us to oppose these forces, and work to build the world we WANT to live in! Dare to struggle, dare to win! Personally I advocate for the Panther approach to policing. First, we must recognize the roots of the modern system of US policing. Policing started in the United States as “Runaway Slave Patrols” and have changed very little about how they operate ever since.
Second, the communities themselves must have control of the police (we’re not talking about limited oversight boards, here. We’re talking about the communities having the power to hire and fire police, change procedures, etc) and police officers should be from/live in the cities they intend to police. We need to make sure NOT to appeal to the same types of people who currently choose “law enforcement” as a career choice.
Now, on to the point of this writing; militarization of police in the United States. We’ll focus on the 1950s to the present, though there’s plenty of examples much further back. Upon beginning the research for this piece, it became apparent that multiple books can, and probably have been, written on the subject. We’ll try to keep this a manageable length to go over the basics, and probably circle back to the topic in future writings.
I’ll start off by pointing out that this issue has been greatly exacerbated in recent times. The PATRIOT Act and subsequent legislation (such as certain provisions of the 2012 NDAA) have greatly restricted our civil liberties and enabled police militarization on a whole different scale. Trump gave police agencies more federal money than any previous president. Of course, since Joe Biden took office, he’s upped the ante even further. For 2022, federal funds for policing are rising EVEN HIGHER, as reported by National Review and Yahoo! News back in March.
“The plan sent to Congress allocates more than $32 billion to fighting crime, especially violent crime, with $20.6 billion going to the Department of Justice and $3.2 billion in discretionary resources for funding local and state law enforcement, much of it in the form of grants to hire more police officers. About $30 billion in mandatory resources will be funneled to “support law enforcement, crime prevention, and community violence intervention.”
The proposal directs $17.4 billion, an increase of $1.7 billion above the 2021 amount, for DOJ law enforcement. That sum includes $1.7 billion for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to crack-down on gun-trafficking. U.S. Attorneys will be given $72.1 million to prosecute violent crimes.”
Into the data; in December 2020, abc News reported that two studies which suggested that “providing police with military gear does NOT reduce crime OR protect officers.” The two peer-reviewed studies, one by a researcher at the University of Michigan and the other by scholars at Emory College of Arts & Sciences and Louisiana State University, allege that the Trump administration used “unreliable” data to justify a 2017 executive order that bolstered the Pentagon giveaway program by rolling back restrictions on the types of military equipment that can be distributed to police departments. (This is something else we touched briefly on in our previous article)
Forbes magazine published a policy piece back in 2017 aimed at Tracking Military Weaponry. I’m not going to go TOO deep into specifics, but I’ll point you towards a tool called “Open The Books” where you can see what your locality has received so you can struggle against it in your own communities. Here’s some samples from the Forbes article:
- In Illinois, the College of DuPage received 14 fully automatic M16 rifles. The police department in Wheaton (pop. 53,000) picked up 68 M16 and M14 rifles plus five pistols (.45 caliber). Evanston – a small community known to promote gun control ordinances procured 20 M16 rifles.
- Paducah County, Kentucky, (pop. 25,000) received 78 M16 rifles and one mine-resistant vehicle while the Georgetown Police Department (pop. 33,000) procured 77 M16 and M14 rifles, 40 pistols (.45 caliber), and one mine-resistant vehicle.
- In Ohio, the Department of Natural Resources received 240 fully automatic M16 and M14 rifles. Why? To enforce hunting laws?
- Mine-resistant armored vehicles (49) were transferred to many small towns and counties in Florida including Baker County (pop. 27,000), Leesburg (pop. 22,400), Hallandale Beach (37,113), and Suwannee County (pop. 43,000).
To use the Open the Books Map Tool, click here.
The issue is so widespread that even foreign press has picked up on the issues. The Guardian did an article in 2020 attempting to explain why US Police Forces are equipped like military units. Surprisingly, they did a pretty good job of painting how unnecessary these things are, pointing out basic facts like “since 1997, the US Department of Defense has transferred more than $7.2 billion in military equipment to law enforcement agencies through the 1033 program,” and, “in 2014 (the year of the unrest in Ferguson, MO) the police received $377.2 million in military equipment.” Their article also links a 2017 study that found that the receipt of military equipment by law enforcement agencies leads to an increase in the number of civilians killed by their officers.
This overall trend is shown in the rising number of police killings over the same timeframe. The more military gear police departments have, the more civilians they kill. Police militarization originally ramped up through “the War on Drugs” and “COINTELPRO” in the 1960s and 70s. The purposes of the militarization were to demonize people of color, drug users, anti-war activists, students, communists, socialists, anarchists….basically anyone who envisions a better world.
As revolutionary movements swept the globe in the 1960s, police crackdowns ramped up. This can be shown in Europe (May ‘68 in France, for example) Asia (the Vietnam War) This happened at home in the US, as well. The assassinations of Malcom X was likely ordered by the US federal government, and declassified FBI documents showed that certainly is the case for MLK. As groups that further threatened US “national security” (capitalism) came into being and gained popular support, the crackdown just grew and grew. (For more examples, look no further than the Black Panther Party and the Rainbow Coalition)
The 1033 program was officially introduced by President Bill Clinton in 1997. Four years later, the PATRIOT Act was signed into law by President George W Bush, restricting civil liberties in the name of “the War on Terror” and got even worse with the signing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama. This isn’t an issue electoral politics will solve. Both parties are complicit in the spiral of the United States into a neoliberal adaptation of fascism.
We cannot sit idly by and allow the police forces in this nation to continue to suppress, repress and oppress us every step of the way. They want to disarm the population while taking military gear for themselves!
The costs this system imposes on our society as a whole is quite great. There’s the costs of over-policing and criminalization of poverty, the costs of the additional people killed by police with military equipment, the costs of criminalizing mental health issues, and, of course, the societal costs inherent in oppression of anyone brave enough to stand up to this fascist machine.
The United States doesn’t even have facilities to help people get mental healthcare, we just throw them in prisons and forget about it! Furthermore, privatized prisons actually create a DEMAND for prisoners, and under the 13th amendment, slavery is legal for the punishment of a crime. The police exist FOR oppression, not to “protect and serve.” It’s time that we, as citizens of the land, stand up to this overreaching authority and demand they remove their boot from our throat!
Keep your eye open for more articles on this topic. As we said in the beginning of this, several books could be filled with the information on this topic. Now, we’d like to ask of you… What’s the first step?
To support For We Are Many financially, subscribe to our Patreon, or make a one time donation!
https://www.patreon.com/forwearemany
https://www.forwearemany.org/donate
For We Are Many can be found at:
https://www.forwearemany.org
Facebook: https://facebook.com/forwearemanypodcast
Twitter: @forwearemanypod
TikTok: @forwearemanypodcast
Instagram: @forwearemanypodcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUFRijmULSe88GILOzNhdsA
For We Are Many is a proud member of the Left Signal Boost TV Collective:
https://www.facebook.com/LeftSignalBoostTV
