For decades, the militarization of America's police departments had flown under the radar from the community's eye...
until it was made more prevalent with the way police handled recent protest such as the ones in Ferguson and St. Louis, Missouri. Since the early 90's, legislation like the "1033 program" has allowed government institutions like the Pentagon to donate, free of charge, military equipment to local police departments. This equipment ranges from M-16s to MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicles) and the total worth of donated equipment has now reached around $5 billion since back when the program started (most likely more). Along with the Prison Industrial Complex, this issue has its thick roots around America's "War on Drugs," which many have argued has led to a new form of Jim Crow Laws due to the mass incarceration of Black and Latino minorities--effectively keeping minorities and their families impoverished (look at the Netflix doc "13th" if you haven't already to get a better sense of what I'm referring to).
So... what has been a result of police militarization?
An increase use of swat teams ravaging homes, many times in search for drugs and a lot of times ending with the loss of lives of people or pets.
In what follows I will develop an Aristotelian perspective on the concept of justice to help explain whether or not police militarization should be allowed by the American people. I will argue that Aristotle's views of justice as Teleological and Honorific clarify the fact that citizens have an obligation to stop the militarization of local police departments dead in its tracks. The reason for this being that the teleology of military equipment and police doesn't sync with how they are being honored.
According to Aristotle, nature works toward a telos, or end goal. The end goal is the meaning or essential nature of all things, living and non-living. Aristotle believed humans to be “rational animals,” meaning that our telos is rational. Our essential nature is to realize our full potential as rational beings. If we can't become fully rational then we are falling short of our essential nature. For Aristotle, this is the human's main goal in life, this is how we become truly virtuous beings.
Realizing the end goal leads our gaze to the concept of justice as honorific. Michael J. Sandel describes this as "To reason about the telos or end of a social practice, or to argue about it, is at least in part to reason or argue about what virtues the social practice should honor and reward" ("Justice: Whats the Right Thing to Do?", Sandel) Just as virtues and social practices have a telos, they also have a proper reward that needs to be reasoned about. In order to understand the telos and how to honor it one must think about what caused it to come into being and what purpose or function the thing is meant to fulfill.
Now let's take a look at how we can apply Aristotle's theory to the issue of police militarization. First, lets look at the telos of military equipment. Military equipment is designed to be used in hostile environments where combat takes place, most obvious a war zone. These weapons are put in the hands of professionals trained to kill the enemy. Typically, these professionals walk around with the weapons having a it's either you or me and if it's not you then I don't go home mentality. Now let's look at the telos of the police. According to the job description, the main function of a police officer is "To ensure the preservation of peace and public safety through the enforcement of local, state, and Federal laws, and by providing support and assistance during emergency or crisis situations."
Now looking at how both of these are being honored, you begin to notice a lot of discrepancies. First and foremost, the "war zone" that the military equipment is being used in is America's own communities, particularly low-income neighborhoods. Secondly, the equipment is being given to the people that protect the communities. Many will say that this form of protection is practical because now a day's people can buy bigger and more damaging guns to commit crimes. While this is true, it doesn't support the reality of the situation. The main reason being that most of this equipment is being used to target low-income neighborhoods. The minorities committing the crimes usually don't have the capital to buy equipment which will call for the use of a Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicle. To think so would be absurd.
Bounkham Phonesavanh was an infant that was resting in his crib during a police drug raid. A flash-bang grenade was thrown into his crib during the raid which created a hole in his chest, exposing a rib, and nearly tore off his nose. When his mother tried to attend to him she was yelled at by police and told to shut up. At this point, the actions of these police officers have no longer aligned with the telos of their job. Now with their new military equipment, they begin to act in accordance to the telos of the equipment, thus turning them into soldiers. They are no longer protecting the people they are meant to serve, now they are harming them. Instead of keeping the piece and thinking rationally about the situations like a police officer is supposed to do, they are now taking the role of soldiers blindly following orders. Aristotle will argue that police militarization is unjust for this exact reason.
When seeing an MRAP rolling down your street you're initial reaction would probably be to say "wow what a cool looking, heavy-duty vehicle", but as the terror sets in you begin to think has my neighborhood really gotten this bad? Chances are NO it hasn't. What has gotten worse is the way the government has chosen to deal with drugs, thus leading to the militarization of police. When looking at the issue from an Aristotelian perspective this conclusion becomes more evident. What also become more evident is the fact that as a citizen you have a moral obligation to do something about it. Along with his theory of Justice, Aristotle believes that our main purpose is to become fully rational beings, not just by thought but through our actions. Now that your mind is actively trying to rationalize this issue, I encourage you to act in a way that would benefit our society and hopefully rebuild trust with the community and those that protect it on a daily basis.
Stop police militarization.
To stay up-to-date with news about Police Militarization and things you could do to help check out the ACLU.
And if you're interested in this topic then you might also want to check out the report that Jeremy Travis, former President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, conducted which studied possible approaches to ease relations between the community and law enforcement.
If you liked this article and want more food for thought then be sure to check out my previous posts:
- How May We Prevent War? - A Visionary's Manifesto
- A Poetic Meditation: Nature, Spirituality, and Identity in Emily Dickinson's 1170
- A Poetic Meditation: The Ego & The "Presence that Disturbs me with the Joy/ Of Elevated Thoughts." (SWC)