Federal training of law enforcement agencies within the United States and beyond its borders began in earnest in an effort to curtail the influx of illicit drugs into America. Following Repeal of Prohibition in 1933, border policing changed from Canada to Mexico, especially following the successes in stemming the flow of illegal substances (mainly heroin and cocaine) from operations in Columbia and Southeast Asia. Given that the Columbian and Asian successes were due largely to joint military and police efforts, the focus of Mexico resulted in the recent remilitarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. The War on Terrorism that began following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington, DC, led to another round of federal funding for state and local law enforcement through grants made available by the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Here, the border patrol, National Guard units, state, country, and local law enforcement act in unison against the perceived threats against the United States. Granted these coordinated efforts are needed and the end result has contributed to better law enforcement coordination and standards, nonetheless, some feel that these achievements have been at the expense of traditional community policing. The effectiveness of these coordinated efforts was clearly demonstrated with the manhunt subsequent to the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist attack on April 15, which included both federal and state (Massachusetts and New Hampshire) law enforcement personnel.
Understanding the Foundations of American Policing
The change in policing in America stemmed mainly from the 1967 Task Force Report: The Police that was part of the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, which, in turn, provided the foundation for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration that emerged from the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. The report provides a short history of the influences on law enforcement in the United States:
France and other continental countries maintained professional police forces of a sort as early as the 17th century. But England, fearing the oppression these forces had brought about in many of the continental countries, did not begin to create police organizations until the 19th century. . . . Primarily, the system encouraged mutual responsibility among local citizen’s associations, which were pledged to maintain law and order; it was called the “mutual pledge” system. Every man was responsible not only for his own actions but also for those of his neighbors. It was each citizen’s duty to raise the “hue and cry” when a crime was committed, to collect his neighbors and to pursue a criminal who fled from the district. If such a group failed to apprehend a lawbreaker, all were fined by the Crown.
The Crown placed this mutual responsibility for group police action upon 10-family groups. Each of these was known as a “tithing.” From the tithing, there subsequently developed the “hundred” comprised of 10-tithings. From this developed the first real police officer—the constable. He was appointed by a local nobleman and placed in charge of the weapons and equipment of each hundred. Soon the “hundreds” were grouped to form a “shire,” a geographical area equivalent to a county. A “shire-reeve”—lineal antecedent of tens of thousands of sheriffs to come—thus came into being, appointed by the Crown to supervise each county. The constable’s breadth of authority remained limited to his original “hundred.”
It was during the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), that the first official police forces were created in the large towns of England. These were called the “watch and ward,” and were responsible for protecting property against fire, guarding the gates, and arresting those who committed offenses between sunset and daybreak. At the same time the constable became the primary law enforcement officer in all towns throughout England. In 1326, to supplement the “shire-reeve” mutual pledge system, Edward II created the office of justice of the peace . . . to assist the Sheriff in policing the county. . . . The constables, who retained the responsibility of serving as a major official within the pledge system . . . became an assistant to the justice, responsible for supervising the night watchmen, inquiring into offenses, serving summonses, executing warrants, and taking charge of prisoners. [By the end of the 14th century, the constable] was obliged to serve the justice. This essentially set the justice-constable patterns for the next 500 years.
American colonists in the 17th and 18th centuries naturally brought to America the law enforcement structure with which they were familiar in England. The transfer of the offices of constable and sheriff to rural American areas—which included most colonial territory—was accomplished with little change in structure of the offices. . . . The Crown-appointed Governors bestowed these offices on large landowners who were loyal to the King. After the revolution, sheriffs and constables tended to be selected by popular elections, patronage then being on the wane. . . . As American towns grew in size and population during the first half of the 19th century, the constable was unable to cope with the increasing disorder. As in England years before, lawlessness became more prevalent. Again, as in England, many American cities began to develop organized metropolitan police forces of their own. Philadelphia was one of the first (1833). In 1838, Boston created a day police force to supplement the nightwatch and other cities soon followed its lead. . . . Keen rivalries existed between the day and night shifts, and separate administrations supervised each shift. Recognizing the evils of separate police forces, the New York Legislature passed a law in 1844 that authorized creating the first unified day and night police, thus abolishing its nightwatch system. Ten years later Boston consolidated its nightwatch with the day police. . . . And by 1900s there were few cities of consequence without such unified forces.
These first formal police forces in American cities were faced with many of the problems that police continue to confront today. Police officers became the objects of disrespect. The need for larger staffs required the police to compromise personnel standards in order to fill the ranks. And police salaries were among the lowest in local government service, a factor which precluded attracting sufficient numbers of high standard candidates. It is small wonder that the police were not respected, were not notably successful, and were not known for their vitality and progressiveness. . . . Many of the problems that troubled these first organized metropolitan police forces can perhaps be traced to a single root—political control.1
In their comprehensive review of policing in America and its obvious failure during the turbulent 1960s, the 1967 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice concluded that changes were needed, changes that provided the foundation for the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act:
There are today (circa 1960s) in the United States 40,000 separate agencies responsible for enforcing laws on the Federal, State, and local levels of government. But law enforcement agencies are not evenly distributed among these three levels, for the function is primarily a concern of local government. There are 50 law enforcement agencies on the Federal level of government and 200 departments at the State level. The remaining 39,750 agencies are dispersed throughout the many counties, cities, towns, and villages that form our local governments. . . . 3,050 agencies are located in counties and 3,700 in cities. The great majority of police forces—33,000—are distributed throughout boroughs, towns, and villages.
Because the concept of local autonomy in enforcing laws has prevailed throughout our history and because the many local policing agencies have held firmly to their traditional jurisdictional authority, responsibility for maintaining public order is today extremely decentralized. This decentralization is further accentuated by the fact that a police officer’s responsibility for enforcing law is usually confined to a single jurisdiction.2
When looking at the problems plaguing police agencies in the United States, the Task Force on Police made three basic observations:
The vehicle for addressing these shortcomings and the implementation of new standards was the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) component of the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Assistance Act. Block grants were provided by state and region, with the vast majority of monies going to the local law enforcement agencies. As stated earlier, police standards were now implemented at newly established police academies at both the state and federal levels. All police personnel were expected to be trained at these academies and certified allowing both lateral and upward mobility for law enforcement and correctional personnel. In addition to specific training, many police academies held articulation agreements with local community colleges whereby police candidates could earn at least an associate degree, if not a four-year degree. This element of the LEAA was quite successful in that many law enforcement personnel at all levels hold postgraduate degrees. Granted some are of dubious quality, such as those provided under the Massachusetts Quinn Bill or other questionable “cop shops” where local adjunct practitioners teach in lieu of bona fide academicians. Nonetheless, this is a far cry from the nepotistic hiring of the past and the blatant racist atmosphere within certain local jurisdiction, notably those associated with the Jim Crow South. But better armament, including firearms and military-style armored vehicles, were also purchased using LEAA funding.
The Militarization of Law Enforcement
Again, the English provide the historical bases for the military structure that emerged within American law enforcement, especially in metropolitan police. In 1822, Sir Robert Peel, England’s Home Secretary (similar to Interior Minister in European systems), began searching for a better metropolitan police force to protect London. Toward this end, Peel, in 1829, introduced An Act for Improving the Police In and Near the Metropolis, basing his innovative approach on a military-style structure. His “bobbies” would wear a distinctive uniform, not to be confused with military personnel. The Metropolitan Police Force proved so successful that Parliament enacted other police reform bills, including the establishment of a similar police force in the counties (1839) and in 1856 requiring every borough and county to have a police force based on the Metropolitan Police model. These local jurisdictions became known as “batches” while overall supervision rested at the Met’s headquarters, Scotland Hall.4
Prior to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, many law enforcement agencies in the United States were responsible for the purchase, if not the choice, of firearm. Following the U.S. War between the States, black powder revolvers were replaced with self-contained cartridge bullets, with the popular six-shot revolver usually in .32, .38, or .45 caliber. By the mid-twentieth century, the most popular sidearm was the .38 caliber revolver. And given that many law enforcement personnel also were members of their respective State National Guard units, access to high-power 30-06 caliber rifles (bolt-action Springfield rifle, the, Browning Automatic Rifle, and the M1 Garand) increased, although authorization for use of these weapons was greatly restricted, requiring a governor’s or the president’s authorization. The National Firearm Act of 1934 was designed to restrict the purchase and use of submachine guns, like the .45 caliber Thompson, as well as sawed off shotguns. Even then, these long-guns and shotguns were awkward to conceal and use. The change in military armament coincided with the advent of the LEAA providing both law enforcement and the military with more versatile firearms. At the same time, large capacity (thirteen- to fifteen-round clips) semiautomatic pistols adopted by the military were in demand by police forces as well. Now the Beretta and Glock pistols rapidly replaced six-shot revolvers throughout the nation’s police forces at all level.
The jungle warfare in Vietnam required another type of weapon, hence the emergence of the M16 rifle in caliber 5.56mm—a lightweight, rapid-fire assault rifle with a standard twenty-round magazine. Used selectively by the U.S. Army beginning in 1963, it became the standard service rifle for the U.S. military in 1969 and later was modified to fire three-round burst per trigger pull. The smaller version, M4 carbine, is used as well. The M16 rifle/M4 carbine played a significant role in the militarization of U.S. law enforcement in that they coincided with the advent of Special Weapons and Tactic (SWAT) teams devised during the 1960s in Los Angeles for riot control, and with the creation of LEAA, each state began creating its own SWAT teams for potential riot control, as well as to participate in the national War on Drugs. The LAPD SWAT team saw the advent of increased firepower vested in special police units. Here, SWAT units were equipped with submachine guns, assault rifles, breaching shotguns, sniper rifles, stun grenades, heavy body armor, ballistic shields, door rams, armored vehicles (BearCats and the like), night-vision devices, motion detectors, and, later, robots. The SWAT concept provided law enforcement agencies the same authority and firepower as a military Special Forces, Navy Seal, or Marine Corps unit. The police now transformed from an intracommunity protection unit to an “occupational” force justified in protecting against criminal subversives and terrorists. Part of this transformation was also manifested in the change in uniform from recognizable “blue” to combat black, along with all the apparatus indicating a combat situation. This was certainly the polar opposite of the initial intent of the Omnibus Control and Safe Streets Act. Now, more than ever, U.S. society was divided into acceptable versus criminally stigmatized, visibly recognized entities.
An even more intense militarization effort followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the new War on Terrorism. Clearly, a major factor in the militarization of law enforcement in the United States was the creation of SWAT teams and their federal support through programs such as LEAA and Homeland Security.5
Military Rank and Status
An interesting outcome of the militarization of law enforcement is the corresponding rank/status phenomenon. Anthropologists and sociologists have long recognized that authority and privilege are associated with a person’s status within the society. In this sense, all organized societies define the status hierarchy. Ralph Linton noted that cultures usually subscribe to two types of status—ascribed, based mainly on sex, age, and family/clan affiliation; and achieved, based on individual accomplishments or elective processes such as occupation, marriage, and the like. I would add two subcategories to the latter—enhanced and fabricated. Enhanced status is when an obviously legitimate status is elevated to something higher, while fabricated status is when someone creates a status far removed from their actual position.6
In societies like the United States where there are no inherited titles, military status ranks high. The military is based on a caste system that divides commissioned officers from enlisted personnel. The officer ranks (O-1 to O-10), in turn, are divided into two echelons with “field grade” ranks, that is major and above, being the most prestigious. Within this system, a captain (O-3) is the commanding officer (CO) of a company or battery while a battalion has a lieutenant colonel (O-5) as the CO and a major (O-4) as the executive officer (XO). Colonels generally head regiments, while brigadier generals are COs of brigades and major generals lead divisions and so on. Thus, a field grade officer can command anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 military personnel, including entire armies or navies. The United States did not have a permanent four-star general until 1866 when this status was awarded to U. S. Grant. The Confederate army, however, created the four-star rank during the Civil War. When U. S. Grant became president, the sole four-star rank was passed on to William T. Sherman and then to Philip H. Sheridan, who was leading the Indian wars in the West. This permanent rank was not allocated again until 1919 when it was given to John (Black Jack) Pershing. The Second World War not only saw the proliferation of four-star generals and admirals but the creation of the five-star general; even then, only nine men held this rank—four admirals and five generals. This was a lifelong position and was retired in 1981 with the death of General Omar Bradley. George Washington was added to the list posthumously on July 4, 1976. Today, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the heads of the four military services (army, navy, air force, and marines), and the head of NATO forces, are four-star generals or admirals, albeit superior to other four-star officers serving under their command.
Civilian superiors, such as the secretary of the army, navy, and air force, do not hold military rank. Yet the use of military rank predominates within U.S. society, especially within the paramilitary police organizations. The military structure at the state level, on the other hand, occurs with the National Guard, which follows the regular military rank structure with the governor appointing the commanding general, usually at brigadier rank (0–9). However, the prolonged wars on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, with greater reliance on the federalized National Guard, resulted in an upgrade to the rank with a major general in command of the overall National Guard and brigadier generals as heads of the basic components such as the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard. This inflation at the higher echelon of military rank has also afflicted the U.S. military in general.
Within the civilian criminal justice systems, both federal and state, the top law enforcement officer is the attorney “general.” Within the state-system, the state police are the law enforcement agency assigned to the attorney general’s office with statewide jurisdiction. At the federal level, the U.S. Marshal’s office was designed in 1789 to act as the law enforcement unit for U.S. courts with a high marshal appointed to each state and territory, with the U.S. attorney general now being the top government law enforcement officer. State police agencies, on the other hand, usually follow the military rank structure with the director holding the rank of O-6 colonel acting under the direction of the AG (attorney general). State police forces often have “troops” located throughout the state’s jurisdiction, again using the military rank model with a captain heading the troop.
When looking at the largest municipal police department in the United States, New York City, with a population of over eight million and covering 468.9 square miles in five boroughs, it becomes evident that a well-organized police force is justified. In the New York Police Department (NYPD), we again see the five-star rank, this time for the police commissioner, who supervises up to 40,000 personnel. Clearly, this falls under the enhanced status category while the basic rank hierarchy below the commissioner’s office clearly follows a reasonable paramilitary format: chief of department holds four-stars; bureau chief, three-stars; assistant chief, two-stars; and deputy chief, one star. Inspectors are full-bird colonels; deputy inspectors, lieutenant colonels; while captains head precincts. Below Captains are lieutenant, sergeant, and patrolmen. Captains head the seventy-six precincts. The Los Angeles Police Department has jurisdiction for a similar geographic area as the NYPD but with half the population. The LAPD’s (third-largest U.S. police agency—Chicago is second largest) rank structure has the politically appointed (by the mayor) chief of police holding four-star general status, with the assistant chief (deputy chief II) holding three-star general rank, while the deputy chief I is a two-star general, and police commanders hold one-star status. The intermediate field-grade military ranks (O-4 major/lieutenant commander; O-5 lieutenant colonel/commander; and O-6 colonel/captain) are omitted with the next highest rank being that of captain and then lieutenant, police sergeant II/police detective III (staff sergeants), police sergeant I/police detective II (buck sergeants); police detective I/police officer III (corporals) with police officers I and II having no military insignia.
Other police departments soon picked up on this military-style ranking, assigning themselves the rank of general regardless of the size or jurisdiction of their department. The proliferation of this fabricated status was soon demonstrated with heads of departments putting on general’s stars (including four or five stars) regardless if their legal status was high sheriff or chief of police. This practice clearly speaks of “arrogance of position,” raising serious questions concerning their commitment as public servants who are licensed to use lethal force in their role in securing public safety. Law enforcement represents a public-service agency, one licensed to use deadly force in protecting the public at large. Enhanced and inflated status has little to do with carrying out law enforcement functions. Instead, it can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby the chief or high sheriff comes to believe that they are, in fact, far superior to their fellow officers, an image conveyed to the public as well. Those police leaders posing as a high-ranking military officer project the image of heading an occupational force, an image not lost on minorities who are often disproportionately targeted by law enforcement. Law enforcement was not intended to be a high-status occupation. All that is necessary to convey their authority to the public is the uniform and shield or badge. The standard for any state should be the state police force, which has the broadest jurisdiction.7
Post–9-11-2001 and the Ferguson Effect
Clearly, the LEAA addressed the issues of standardized training, communication, and equipment for law enforcement agencies across all levels of government. Its shortfall was in the area of defusing racial tensions both in the communities they served and within their own ranks. This became evident with the 1992 Watts Los Angeles riot following the acquittal of four white police officers who were charged with the beating of black motorist, Rodney King, which was captured in a widely distributed video. The acquittal was the catalyst for the latent racial tensions evident in Los Angeles. The three days of rioting in May 1992 resulted in dozens of deaths, over a thousand injuries, many serious, and property damages estimated at 600 million dollars, making it the deadliest U.S. riot since the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. President George H. W. Bush (1989–1993) federalized the National Guard and placed army and marine troops on standby. Interestingly, the jury that acquitted the four white police officers did not have any black members. Obviously, the costly measures advocated in numerous blue ribbon commissions failed in their efforts to lessen racial tensions.8
Gang activity and increasingly more lethal weapons available to lawbreakers were also highlighted within the Los Angeles jurisdiction when on February 28, 1997, two heavily armed men, Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Matasareanu, clad head-to-toe in military-style body armor, robbed a Bank of America branch of some 300 thousand dollars and then engaged in a forty-four-minute gun battle with the police, shooting at civilians and police within their sight, using armor-piercing bullets, and injuring twelve police officers and eight civilians. In all more than 2,000 bullets were fired in the widely televised forty-four-minute shoot out in the “battle of North Hollywood.” Both gunmen died from their wounds, one self-inflicted. The clear message to law enforcement throughout the country was that there was the potential danger of confronting “bad guys” who were better armed than they were. This led to the rapid expansion of SWAT teams throughout municipalities, with rural SWAT teams comprised of local, county, and state police units with access to armor personnel vehicles (BearCats). The battle of North Hollywood also led to increased demand for military weapons like the M-16 or its civilian counterpart, the AR-15, and for rapid-fire, semiautomatic pistols with high-capacity magazines (thirteen to fifteen rounds) to replace the slower, six-shot revolvers long used as the standard police sidearm.9
The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, changed the nature of law enforcement, greatly increasing federal control over policing America at all levels and jurisdictions. The federal government created the DHS on March 1, 2003, with oversight over three agencies: U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement (CBE); U.S. Citizens and Immigration Services (USCIS); and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Under this arrangement, the U.S. Border Patrol becomes part of the CBE while ICE now is responsible for deportation of undocumented (aka “illegal”) immigrants. Under DHS, federal law enforcement has merged the War on Drugs with the War on Terrorism, with increased focus on security at the Mexico-U.S. border vis-à-vis the U.S.-Canada border. Indeed, since the establishment of the DHS, the vast majority of all arrests for illegal entry comes from the U.S.-Mexico border, known historically as the Borderlands. These efforts at curtailing illegal entry has led to an increased militarization of the Borderlands.
In 2006, President George W. Bush initiated Operation Jump Start, providing monetary enticements to the border states (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas) to deploy their National Guard forces at their respective state’s Borderlands. This tactic, of not federalizing these National Guard units, bypassed the prohibition of using federal troops within the United States for domestic purposes. The components of Operation Jump Start include: Operation Gatekeeper, involving the California-Tijuana region of the Borderlands; Operation Safeguard, the term for the component at Nogales, Mexico–Douglas, Arizona; and Operation Hold the Line for the Juarez, Mexico–El Paso, Texas region. New Mexico has no major entry points with the Borderlands. These border operations resulted in an increase in U.S. Border Patrol agents in addition to the introduction of National Guard troops. Also, in 2006, the ATF (U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) initiated its clandestine, five-year (2006–2011) Project Gunrunning sting operation, allegedly in order to trace U.S. weapons crossing the border into Mexico for use by gangs and cartels. Here, the ATF purposely allowed licensed firearm dealers, mainly in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, to sell assault-type weapons to illegal straw buyers in order to trace these guns to Mexican drug cartels. This was known as gun walking, with the largest of these projects known as Operation Fast and Furious. Of the 2,000 firearms involved in the gun walking project, only 710 were successfully traced. Moreover, some 150 civilian deaths in Mexico were traced to these guns, leading to a major investigation by Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and a further distrust of U.S. law enforcement agendas.
The militarization of the U.S. borders in the name of homeland security continued under President Barack Obama. The September 11 terrorist attacks impacted travel at both U.S. international borders. On January 6, 2009, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) was initiated. Its purpose was to facilitate the free trade arrangements under NAFTA while at the same time increasing security to “others” attempting transborder entry into the United States. Here, approved NAFTA groups have access to Free and Secure Trade Express (FAST) passage while requiring official passports for all others, including North American Indians, many who do not possess U.S.-approved birth certificates required for passports. Effective June 1, 2009, as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), WHTI requires U.S. and NAFTA partner travelers to present a passport or other documents that denote identity and citizenship when entering the United States.
This agreement does not recognize tribal-issued identification cards, such as tribal membership or enrollment cards, the sole identification for some North American Indians. Consequently, indigenous peoples, notably members of the forty tribal groups whose traditional lands transcend either the Mexico-U.S. or Canada-U.S. borders, are among those most affected by this increased security. Since September 11 and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the federal government has further intruded into the limited autonomy of tribal governance within Indian Country. Under these provisions the U.S. military can occupy tribal lands under the DHS Tribal Consultation Policy, a measure not taken since Wounded Knee II in the 1970s. Now the U.S. government can unilaterally intervene in Indian Country under any pretense that is authorized by DHS, including military intervention.10
President Obama, in May 2010, followed his predecessor’s actions by ordering 1,200 National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border. This was to augment the New Mexico National Guard component activated by Governor Bill Richardson. DHS used the combined federal, state, and local law enforcement and the National Guard to augment the border patrol and coast guard in securing the country from illicit networks trafficking in people, drugs, illegal weapons, and money. The use of the military to provide support to law enforcement agencies challenges the long-held protections against such action vested in the Posse Comitatus Act. The main exception is when martial law is declared. However, the War on Drugs led to congressional language that appears to skirt this law by allowing the militarization of law enforcement if the military units are used primarily as support for civilian law enforcement agencies. This provision actually goes back to the Carter and Reagan administrations, having been crafted in the 1980s leading to its 1981 codification as Chapter 18 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code—Military Support for Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies. Under this law, the efforts begun under the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act expanded the military influence on civilian law enforcement agencies through loans of equipment and facilities, as well as training. This service is curtailed only if providing such assistance adversely affects the Department of Defense’s military preparedness. The National Defense Authorization Act of 1991, Section 1004, authorized the Department of Defense to extend military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies requesting counterdrug assistance, including providing equipment and training. When federalized, the National Guard units become either the “Army National Guard of the United States “or the “Air Force National Guard of the United States.”
However, in the War on Drugs National Guard units can serve a federal purpose while still under the control of the state’s governor. This is known as “Title 32 Duty status” and is the situation under which Operation Jump Start was authorized. Moreover, federal funding and support can be provided to states for implementing drug interdiction and counterdrug activity, such as the Joint Counter Narco-Terrorism Task Force used in Arizona. Also following the creation of DHS, in 2004, Congress authorized the use of the National Guard for “homeland defense activity,” which implies reaction to a threat or aggression against the United States. This allows for a wide array of situations, given the ambiguous nature of the worldwide War on Terrorism.11
These federal-state agreements extend beyond illicit drug trafficking and potential terrorists to include illegal immigrants per se. ICE agreements with states, such as the Rapid REPAT Program and Border Security Task Forces (BEST), use civilian law enforcement agencies to assist in the arrest and detainment of suspected illegal immigrants. The roundup of undocumented aliens, notably those charged with a criminal offense (including misdemeanors), accelerated under President Obama’s administration and is being pursued even more rigorously under the presidency of Donald Trump. The problem of these assorted efforts purported to combat crime and terrorism is that they tend to demonize people of color, hence stereotyping entire racial groups as constituting an eminent danger to the public at large and law enforcement in particular. Here, discriminatory drug laws served in creating a self-fulfilling prophecy with the overrepresentation of race and ethnic minorities arrested, convicted, and incarcerated disproportionately to their representation in American society.
The divide between minority communities and police was further compromised by the increased militarization of civilian law enforcement agencies. SWAT teams, armored vehicles, assault rifles, and black garb does little to engender a sense of community policing, nor does the use of military rank, which connotes marshal law to many minorities in these “occupied communities.” This divisiveness provides the stimulus for impulsive behaviors by both the public and the police, often igniting situations like that in Ferguson, Missouri, where the black community is seen by the police as not only “enemy territory” but as a source of monetary exploitation, much like that which existed in the Jim Crow South prior to passage of the U.S. civil rights laws a half-century ago. In March 2015, a U.S. Department of Justice report found blatant abuse by the police and courts in the Ferguson case including:
Racial profiling and bigotry by the police;
Profit-driven municipal court system that targeted minorities;
Fines and fees generated one-quarter of revenues with minorities targeted for minor violations, arrests, fines and incarceration for failure to pay fines while police and courts often “fixed” tickets for whites.
This is a common theme in many minority communities today, clearly indicating that while police armament has greatly proved equal to our well-suited military forces, racial biases and discrimination still persist and are institutionalized in many communities with substantial minority populations. In May 2015, President Obama started efforts to restrict the easy access of military armaments to civilian law enforcement agencies. This includes restricting the military transfer of grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, firearms, and ammunition of .50 caliber or higher. President Obama said these military items can alienate and intimidate local residents and send the wrong message. An essay on law and disorder in the January/February Smithsonian addressed this issue:
You can debate why the United States has the world’s largest inmate population with some 2.2 million people in prisons and jails (China is second, with 1.5 million), as well as the world’s highest incarceration rate, with 690 out of every 100,000 people locked up (the next major nation is Russia, with 440). You can also debate, as scholars and criminal justice authorities do, why America’s incarceration rate has shot up dramatically, more than six-fold over the past century. What can’t be disputed, though, is that this phenomenon has acknowledged ripple effects that reach far beyond the inmates themselves—to their extended families, the wider social fabric, the nation’s history.12
A ray of light existed during the previous administration when President Obama reiterated his call for overhauling sentencing practices for nonviolent drug crimes, convictions that disproportionately afflict minorities and constitute the bulk of our overcrowded prison and jail populations.13 Toward this end, President Obama set a presidential record for commutations for nonviolent drug offenses, bringing his total number of clemencies to 1,715, including 212 pardons—more than the past twelve presidents combined. To the dismay of many Native Americans, President Obama denied clemency to AIM activist Leonard Peltier. Unfortunately, the Trump administration appears determined to contain, or even reverse, Obama’s efforts.