NCJ Number
163362
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 13 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1996) Pages: 405-429
Date Published
1996
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This paper looks at characteristics of a police paramilitary unit's training session and the current tendency to militarize social problems in the United States.
Abstract
An ad hoc training session with police officers and military soldiers was observed to study the emerging relationship between police and military forces in the post-Cold War era. The training site was an unregulated piece of land containing a vertical, eroded hillside which made the ideal backdrop for stopping bullets. The men involved in the training session first had a short discussion about how they would conduct the training and then began shooting drills using pistols and other weapons. The author came to realize that the term training was used to legitimize and professionalize the group's activities. The mean appeared to personally enjoy the militaristic nature of the training session, specifically the weapons, explosives, and associated technology and the sense of power derived. Cultural and political implications of the rise in paramilitary groups in the United States are considered, and militarism is viewed as a contemporary cultural force. The tendency toward collaboration between the military-industrial complex and the criminal justice system is discussed. 64 references and 17 footnotes