The Case Against Police Militarization

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The police and the military are different. That much is common ground. Yet, in recent times the police have become increasingly militarized. Unsurprisingly, many find this process alarming and disconcerting, and call for its reversal. However, while most of the objections to police militarization are framed in instrumental arguments, these are unable to capture the fundamental problem with militarization. This Article remedies this shortcoming, by developing a novel and principled argument against police militarization. Contrary to arguments that are preoccupied with the consequences of militarization, we argue that militarization undermines our basic understanding of the nature of the liberal state. Consequently, the real problem with police militarization is not that it brings about more violence or abuse of authority – though that may very well happen – but that it is based on a presumption of the citizen as a threat, while the liberal order is based on precisely the opposite presumption. A presumption of threat, we argue, assumes that citizens, usually from marginalized communities, pose a threat of such caliber that might require the use of extreme violence. Viewed through the prism of the presumption of threat, the problem of police militarization becomes apparent. Perceived as threatening, the policed community is subjected to militarized forces, and thus effectively marked as an enemy. This mark, in turn, leads to the policed community’s exclusion from the body politic. Crucially, the pervasiveness of police militarization has led to its normalization, thus exacerbating its exclusionary effect. Indeed, whereas the domestic deployment of militaries has always been reserved for exceptional times, the process of police militarization has normalized what was once exceptional.