Reddit reviews Our Enemies in Blue

That's an interesting read, I had only a chance to skim it, but it started off on a foot that I disagreed with. It’s obfuscating two entirely different concepts between “militarization” and “military” – though this might be clarified, and I’ll check out more when I get away from work today.

I think the entire militarization of the police is exclusively related to the drug war insofar as SWAT raids, military gear, and the erosion of civil liberties exercised in the name of public safety. The other side of “militarizing” is, for example, that my police department now hands out “campaign ribbons” that officers can wear as a part of their uniform, but they’ve long used military ranks, salutes, and military traditions – so new minor militarization is just a continuation of that history.

I think the link between the military and police goes back for eons, and still continues in many countries through Gendarmerie programs. The military was the police, and still is the police in most parts of the world. In the US we solve the dissolve of the standing army (coupled with a weak federal government) that gave rise to the Night Watch, Slave Patrols, and militia. My friend has a really crude joke, “Do you know why black folks don’t like the police? Because 150 years ago they were called the Slave Patrol.” It’s genuinely true, the police have long existed to go after specific classes of people, usually the poorest – and the “Slave Patrol” wasn’t just enforcing slavery or going after escaped slaves, they were providing general security and would enforce social standards.

Kristian Williams offers an excellent history of policing in his book “Our Enemies in Blue” that defines what makes contemporary policing separate from Gendarmerie programs. I think only in America can we even have such an absurd claim that “our police are becoming the military” because if you ask a Turkish or Chinese or French or Brazilian citizen, their military regularly supplements the police, and they’re basically indistinguishable except that the military is considered of higher rank and more elite. Our National Guard supplements the police too, and if anything, over the last 50 years we’ve used our National Guard substantially less, which is ironic to then complain about “militarizing” police. The alternative is to deploy the military on the front lines of places like Ferguson, which would probably cause a lot more social turbulence.

Thanks for the link though, I’ll check it out further when I have time.

I understand. If you want, there's resources out there for explaining how brutality and corruption are unavoidable parts of the current justice system, rather than unfortunate expections. Try looking at this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Enemies-Blue-Kristian-Williams/dp/1932360433

Saw Our Enemies in Blue mentioned in another thread today. Relevant.