| Ka-pi96 said: Fair enough. Although that seems like a separate issue to the police brutality/racism one. |
I don't think it is. Often, police brutality arises due to the escalation of situations that did not require an armed response in the first place. This can be mitigated by utilizing trained social workers instead of police in these situations to provide the community assistance that an individual needs without resorting to force or violence. We just saw a black man killed last week after the cops were called on a him for sleeping in a Wendy's drive through. Does someone sleeping necessitate an armed response? Could this have been handled better and differently by individuals with a different goal and response tactic?
Additionally, many of these situations escalate due to a lack of trust for police. Especially when we are talking about black men, when an armed force with a history of killing and abusing black men responds to a minor incident, that often is an escalating factor before the confrontation even begins.
Further, I believe the benefit in a shift away from military tactics and gear should be plain to see, especially when looking at the protests from the last couple weeks. We know that meeting protestors with a militant force, using rubber bullets, tear gas, flashbangs and the ilk, escalates the conflict. If the police did not show up as a military force to "dominate" the protesters, I am confident that we would have seen a far different outcome in regards to police brutality.
But this extends past the protests. Research indicates that militarization doesn't improve police safety or reduce crime, but it does harm the reputation of police, which provides a significant hurdle to the community based policing which is important to reducing crime and reducing police brutality. It also infects the mindset of the police and implores them to develop a more militant understanding of their job. It becomes far more "us vs them", which can lead to an increase in the use of violence.
Sources:
Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation
"militarized 'special weapons and tactics' (SWAT) teams are more often deployed in communities of color, and—contrary to claims by police administrators—provide no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction, on average. However, survey experiments suggest that seeing militarized police in news reports erodes opinion toward law enforcement. Taken together, these findings suggest that curtailing militarized policing may be in the interest of both police and citizens."
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/37/9181
Militarization and police violence: The case of the 1033 program
"We theorize that the receipt of military equipment increases multiple dimensions of LEA militarization (material, cultural, organizational, and operational) and that such increases lead to more violent behavior."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2053168017712885
