The Front-Line Troops: Paramilitary Policing in American Neighborhoods

- by Jessica Siah

One of the topics that Professor Musheno focused on these past few lectures have been frontline workers interactions with their citizen-clients and how that, in turn, impacts the citizens’ orientation of the government and public services. Blader and Tyler’s research also shows that people’s judgment of fairness is influenced by two aspects of the street-level workers that they encounter: “the quality of decision making by those authorities and the quality of the treatment that they receive from them” (747). This means that the increasing tendency of public law enforcement to use paramilitary tactics is highly concerning and may undermine the legitimacy of the agency itself.

According to an article in The Economist, evidence shows that the American police are behaving more and more like soldiers rather than cops. The Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) units of many police departments were initially formed to deal with high-risk operations that are outside the ability of normal law officers; however, the past few decades have seen a mission creep in the use of SWAT teams. Peter Kraska, a professor of Justice Studies, estimates that “SWAT teams were deployed about 3,000 times in 1980 but are now used around 50,000 times a year” (The Economist). What is problematic about this statistic is that SWAT teams are often called on for mundane crimes, such as serving search warrants in homes and routine patrols of high-crime areas.

Most SWAT raids rely on “no-knock” warrants obtained from a court, which allows unannounced, forceful entry into a private property if police have a “reasonable suspicion” that signaling their presence would endanger themselves or their mission (The Economist). Such burden of proof is vague and broad, thus, relying on public law enforcement judgments about the suspects involved and how to interpret the legal standard in certain circumstances. In our reading, Maynard-Moody and Musheno demonstrate that frontline workers often use discretion to give extraordinary help to a select few citizen-clients that they feel are worthy. Conversely, when responding to those deemed unworthy or “the bad guys,” the same workers may use rules and procedures to justify their moral judgment and irresponsible use of power (150-151). An example of this can be seen in the statement made by Gary Mikulec, chief of the Ankeny PD, when he defended the decision to raid the house of a disabled ex-serviceman for allegedly stolen items. While they found no such things, two suspects were nonetheless taken into custody on unrelated charges because according to the chief they “were not very good people” (The Economist).

Street-level discretion is arguably more problematic for police since their job entails dangerous situations in which they rely on quick encounters to engage in the crudest from of identity-making, often making judgments based on superficial characteristics. Under such circumstances, public law enforcement can become “rouge agents” as they attempt to get “the bad guys” (Maynard-Moody and Musheno 151). In the context of paramilitary policing, the tactics used – entering heavily armed with guns drawn and shield in front, using a battering ram to force their way inside – emphasizes a big display of force to subdue the enemy quickly. For the hapless individuals caught in such situations, they may feel that they are being treated more like criminals rather than citizens with rights. If people’s opinion of front-line workers do matters, then the fact that a Reason-Rupe Poll found that 41% of Americans believe police misconducts have been increasing is alarming for both the legitimacy of public law enforcement agencies and the government itself.

Sources:

http://www.psy.tcu.edu/justice.pdf

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers

Cops, Teachers, Counselors by Maynard-Moody and Musheno

http://reason.com/poll/2014/04/03/april-2014-national-telephone-survey