Huffington Magazine Issue 42 | Page 58

THE SWAT-IFICATION OF AMERICA have produced some catastrophic results, like the mass drug raid debacles in Tulia and Hearne, Texas, in the late 1990s. But politicians love the Byrne grant program. Congressmen get to put out press releases announcing the new half-million-dollar grant they’ve just helped secure for the hometown police department. And everyone gets to look tough on crime. During the Clinton administration, Congress passed what’s now known as the “1033 Program,” which formalized and streamlined the Reagan administration’s directive to the Pentagon to share surplus military gear with domestic police agencies. Since then, millions of pieces of military equipment designed for use on a battlefield have been transferred to local cops — SWAT teams and others — including machine guns, tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, bayonets, and weapons that shoot .50-caliber ammunition. Clinton also created the “Troops to Cops” program, which offered grants to police departments who hired soldiers returning from battle, contributing even further to the militarization of the police force. Even programs with noble HUFFINGTON 03.31.13 aims have gone awry. Clinton also created the Community-Oriented Policing Services program (COPS), the aim of which was to promote a less confrontational SWAT RAIDS IN AMERICA JUMPED FROM JUST A FEW HUNDRED PER YEAR IN THE 1970S, TO A FEW THOUSAND BY THE EARLY 1980S, TO AROUND 50,000 BY THE MID-2000S. style of policing. But subsequent investigations by publications in Portland, Ore., and Madison, Wis., showed that those grants often went to start or fund SWAT teams. In fact, in interviews with police chiefs as part of his study, Kraska found that many of them believed SWAT raids and militarized policing were perfectly consistent with a community policing approach to crime control. There hasn’t been a major effort to quantify the militarization trend since Kraska’s studies in the late 1990s. That’s what the ACLU is hoping to do with this investigation. “You may remember the story from late last year about Pargould, Arkansas, where the mayor and police chief announced that they