Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of Paramilitarism in American Police Departments

Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence, equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarism in American law enforcement. The 1980s and 1990s have seen marked changes in the number of state and local paramilitary units, in their mission and deployment, and in their tactical armament. According to a recent academic survey, nearly 90 percent of the police departments surveyed in cities with populations over 50,000 had paramilitary units, as did 70 percent of the departments surveyed in communities with populations under 50,000. The Pentagon has been equipping those units with M-16s, armored personnel carriers, and grenade launchers. The police paramilitary units also conduct training exercises with active duty Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. State and local police departments are increasingly accepting the military as a model for their behavior and outlook. The sharing of training and technology is producing a shared mindset. The problem is that the mindset of the soldier is simply not appropriate for the civilian police officer. Police officers confront not an "enemy" but individuals who are protected by the Bill of Rights. Confusing the police function with the military function can lead to dangerous and unintended consequences--such as unnecessary shootings and killings

The expanding role of the Indonesian military

The Indonesian military appears to be taking advantage of a weak president and unpopular police to try and regain some of the internal security functions that it lost as part of the country’s democratisation process. Introduction Since Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) took office in October 2014, the actions of the police have triggered widespread public condemnation, with much less attention to the role of the Indonesian military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI). Both institutions seem to be testing the political waters to see how far they can push their authority in the face of a weak president with little experience in security affairs. The TNI, in particular, seems to be having some success, with its commander, Gen. Moeldoko, as the driving force. The imbroglio beginning in January 2015 surrounding Jokowi’s nomination of a police chief known for his unusual wealth led public confidence in the police as an institution to sink to new lows. Police efforts to weaken the respected Anti-Corruption Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK) sank them further in public esteem. As daily revelations made the police look worse and worse, some voices in civil society and the local media began raising concerns that the military was exploiting both the poor image of the police and the president’s need for a reliable ally to press forward with its own interests. In particular, the TNI was interested in regaining some of the internal security functions ceded to police as part of the democratisation process that began following former President Soeharto’s resignation in 1998. The actions that triggered concerns included: Signing many Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) between civilian agencies (ministries and state enterprises) and the TNI for the provision of security services; Involvement of the TNI in government development programs, such as food self-sufficiency, especially in remote areas; Demand by the military for a greater role in counter-terrorism operations, especially in Poso; Perceived efforts to exclude the police from national security policy-making; Dubious military arrests of criminal suspects in a manner designed to embarrass or intimidate police; Pushing for a contentious national security bill to be reinserted on the legislative agenda; Delaying the clarification of “grey areas” between the military and police; and Expanding military commands. There is no suggestion that the TNI is intent on returning to the centre of the political stage. While often contemptuous of civilian leaders, senior TNI officers know that their legitimacy depends on full commitment to the democratic system. But there does seem to be a sense that various political factors have combined to give the TNI a new opening to address many accumulated frustrations and resentments. Many of these resentments are directed against the police, whom the army in particular sees as having not only usurped some of its functions but also its opportunities for rent-seeking. Some are related to the army trying to preserve its position under a presidency that is focused on maritime issues, and the priority that implies for the navy and the air force. All are occurring under a president who shares the military’s “can do” mentality but who relies heavily on military rather than civilian advisers on security matters and appears to see little danger in allowing the TNI to regain some of the powers it lost in Indonesia’s reform process

The Police-ization of the Military

This essay will briefly review the background of the use of the armed forces in a police capacity, discuss the growth of that role in the I980s and 1990s, and forecast an even greater expansion into that role in the near future due to the emerging threat of catastrophic terrorism. It will contend that this increased reliance on military resources for policing is not in the interest of either the armed forces or the public. Finally, it will make some observations with a view towards minimizing the dangers of police-ization of the military while ensuring the Nation\u27s public safety

Post-Westgate SWAT : C4ISTAR Architectural Framework for Autonomous Network Integrated Multifaceted Warfighting Solutions Version 1.0 : A Peer-Reviewed Monograph

Police SWAT teams and Military Special Forces face mounting pressure and challenges from adversaries that can only be resolved by way of ever more sophisticated inputs into tactical operations. Lethal Autonomy provides constrained military/security forces with a viable option, but only if implementation has got proper empirically supported foundations. Autonomous weapon systems can be designed and developed to conduct ground, air and naval operations. This monograph offers some insights into the challenges of developing legal, reliable and ethical forms of autonomous weapons, that address the gap between Police or Law Enforcement and Military operations that is growing exponentially small. National adversaries are today in many instances hybrid threats, that manifest criminal and military traits, these often require deployment of hybrid-capability autonomous weapons imbued with the capability to taken on both Military and/or Security objectives. The Westgate Terrorist Attack of 21st September 2013 in the Westlands suburb of Nairobi, Kenya is a very clear manifestation of the hybrid combat scenario that required military response and police investigations against a fighting cell of the Somalia based globally networked Al Shabaab terrorist group.Comment: 52 pages, 6 Figures, over 40 references, reviewed by a reade

Pelaksanaan Penegakan Hukum Desersi di Lingkungan Tentara Nasional Indonesia oleh Polisi Militer (Studi Kasus di Detasemen Polisi Militer I/3 Pekanbaru).

Criminal acts can occur anywhere and at any time, including in the Indonesian National Army or what we often call with the TNI. TNI built and developed with soul disciplined and obedient to the command of the military as a tool based on the interests of the state in the field of defense and duties, not escape from an act in violation of the law, especially a military offense. One military offense that often occur in the military environment is a criminal offense of desertion. Criminal offense of desertion is a serious concern among military and law enforcement, especially the Military Police. In this case the role of the Military Police as law enforcement course is expected to run for the sake of justice in society, especially among militaryWith the above description, the authors are interested in doing research with the title Implementation of Environmental Law Enforcement National Army Indonesia Desertion By Military Police (Case Studies in Military Police Detachment I/3 Pekanbaru). This thesis aims as follows, namely to investigate, to find out the constraints faced, the latter aims to determine the effort in overcoming barriers to the implementation of law enforcement desertion in the Indonesian National Army Military Police in Regional law Military Police Detachment I/3 Pekanbaru.In writing this, the author uses empirical approach or sociological research. The location of research is in the area of Law Military Police Detachment I/3 Pekanbaru. Data sources supported by the data source of primary, secondary and tertiary. While data collection techniques are interviews / interview and review of data using deductive method is to analyze the problems of a general nature and then drawn to a conclusion in particular based on existing theory.The results of the discussions in this paper is, first, that the enforcement of environmental law in the military desertion conducted by the Military Police not running optimally. Second, the barriers faced by military police, among others, is a habit or culture of the military itself, the problem of infrastructure, and lack of law enforcement personnel.. Third, prevention efforts undertaken by the Military Police is, law enforcement professionals and high integrity, to cooperate with the community and civil law enforcement officials, conduct legal counseling, adequate facilities and infrastructure

Skills for multiagency responses to international crises

Overview Australian responses to international, complex emergencies and humanitarian crises, generated by natural disaster, conflicts or incidents, demand the coordinated responses of multiple civil-military-police actors and agencies. A scoping study of Australian government agency training needs in the latter half of 2013 indicated that stakeholder agencies continue to have difficulty in identifying and developing individual skills to enable people to operate effectively in a high-pressure crisis environment that requires an integrated civil-military-police response. Agencies highlighted the need to develop a ‘whole-of-government’ set of skills for civil-military-police interaction that would complement agency specific skills. In 2015, the Australian Civil-Military Centre (ACMC) commissioned Sustineo to undertake a project to address this gap. This report, based on Sustineo’s research and consultations, goes some way to identifying the skills needed for effective civil-military-police interaction. However, the list is not exhaustive. In fact, the report highlights the difficulty of articulating a specific set of multiagency, cross-cutting skills for civil-military-police interaction. Practitioners gave consistent advice that specific skills were less important than other factors in successful civil-military-police interaction. Skills and training are only one component of success. The factors that can facilitate and enhance civil-military-police interaction and the strategies required to address those factors are much broader. The report highlights some of these broader factors and how they interrelate. It identifies the interdependence of individual knowledge, skills and attributes, the value of building relationships, the importance of tolerance and understandings of difference and the need for trust and credibility. The report concludes that an individual’s ability to operate effectively in a civil-military-police environment is developed both prior to and during a mission or deployment and relates more to the type of person and their relationships than to specific skills. Generic skills and attributes for effective civil-military-police interaction Common and shared goals Situational awareness Understanding of whole-of-government Personal attributes such as flexibility, resilience and working in a team Professional skills, such as negotiation, mediation, conflict management and partnership brokering Existing professional relationships and networks Trust Self-awareness (and social and emotional intelligence) Tolerance of diversity (including of organisational differences and cultural diversity). The report identifies considerations for developing people for deployments and it is hoped that these will inform agencies’ training and development strategies. The findings support the ongoing work that the ACMC is undertaking to develop an Australian Government Preparedness Framework (the Framework). The Framework will draw together several streams of work that are interrelated, including this report, to further build Australia’s whole-of-government effectiveness in responding to disasters and complex emergencies overseas

Just what is happening in Algeria?

The assassination of the Algerian chief of national police Colonel Ali Tounsi coincides with the standoff between the Turkish Government and the military establishment. In Algeria, a conflict of similar colouring has been underway for several months