NEED RESPONSE TO THIS. AT LEAST 150 WORDS.
The 1033 program is one of the ways that police have become militarized over the years and it allows law enforcement agencies to have access to military hardware. It was created in the wake of the 1997 Hollywood shootout which changed the future of law enforcement dramatically and exposed holes in the defensive response from law enforcement as lots of officers did not have patrol rifles equipped with them. Another key step in the militarization of policing is the creation of SWAT units which respond to high risk calls for service and are a highly used unit in todays policing. In 2014 alone, there were 50,000 SWAT calls for service (Miller, 2019).
The most obvious benefit of police using military equipment is the safety of the officers and protecting innocent civilians from any type of serious danger. Every officer nowadays has a patrol rifle in their car at all times to go along with other protective items like armored vests and less than lethal options and they are very much needed to protect the city. Most larger departments also have a SWAT team or smaller departments will come together and have a few officers of each department be on their shared SWAT team which is what my surrounding cities have. SWAT teams have access to more specialized, militarized equipment like armored vehicles and more advanced protective equipment but I would argue that it is needed to keep everyone safe because SWAT only responds to high risk calls for service. Critics of the militarization of police say that it is turning our neighborhoods into war zones and its dangerous for cops to view citizens as their enemies (Cox, 2020). Some concerns of the militarization of police are that they aren’t effective and promote fear within the community. Having police using military equipment takes away from community engagement and promotes distrust throughout the community that they serve. We saw this far too often during the summer protests last year where protesters and some rioters were very active throughout their communities and a lot of people did not like that the police were out and dressed with anti-riot equipment like teargas and batons. There are also some dangers reported with police having militarized equipment. Researchers have found that an increase in military equipment has led to an increase in police violence and an increase in civilians killed by police in those jurisdictions (Marquez, 2020). I think one way to keep the benefits while mitigated the concerns is to have SWAT continue to respond to high risk calls but to keep a lot of the equipment out of public display like when they are responding to protestors. In my opinion, police absolutely need the protective equipment that they get from the military and it is necessary to keep the officers and their community safe but a lot of fear comes from just seeing the equipment out in the open.
