The Nixon administration really, really started to ramp up federal funding to local police departments. And the idea is you start opening up this spigot of money, and then you can threaten to cut off the money if the departments don't adopt whatever policies the White House is pushing. And that's a way of, you know, having an influence on criminal justice policies without, you know, pushing mandates that may be found unconstitutional.
So the Nixon administration really started this policy. Reagan, the Reagan administration just built off of that. And then, you know, it continued with Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now to Obama. And, you know, the thing to understand about this is that the federal, I mean it's completely warped the priorities of police departments. It makes drug policing a much higher priority than it otherwise would be. And even when they're, I mean even when these grants are well intentioned, they usually don't have the affect that the politicians, you know, want them to have.
And a good example is the Cops Program, which was started in the Clinton administration, and has been a favorite of Vice President Biden. Going back to his days in the Senate, where he claimed credit for creating it. And the Cops Program was a way of, the federal government thought it would encourage community policing, it was giving grants to police departments around the country to hire officers to engage in community policing. Now community policing as it's conventionally understand is a less aggressive, less reactionary type of policing. The idea is that cops should get out of their cars, they should walk beats, they should, you know, know the names of principals of the schools in their neighborhood, they should know the names of business owners, they should go to neighborhood meetings. And it's this idea that the cops should have a stake in the community that they serve. And it, it fosters better relationships, and better communication, and better cooperation between, you know the police and the community. And if, you know, from a community standpoint it looks like the cop is one of them, so when it does come time to use force, the community seems to believe that, you know, the office is protecting them and not this sort of person from the outside who's come in to, you know, harm them, or to impose his will on them.
The problem is, though again, is that when these grants went out there was no, there were no restrictions, there was no oversight. And a lot of police chiefs, and sheriffs across the country, actually think that, *chuckle* reactionary SWAT like units and SWAT like policing, is a form of community policing. And so these grants were going to start SWAT teams in a lot of places.
But a couple studies on this. And you know, oddly enough the Bush administration was phasing these grants out, both these grants the Cops Grant and the Burn Grant. You know, I don't, I don't think they were necessarily opposed to police militarization. I think it was more a matter of cutting, you know a federal program. But then the Obama administration came in and, you know, again refunded both programs at record rates. Gave them the biggest budget they ever had.
Rob Kall: Wait, wait, wait. Let me just get that straight. You're saying that the Obama administration funded the militarization of police at higher levels than the previous Republican administrations?
Radley Balko: Not only that, the highest levels ever. Yeah.
Rob Kall: Kind of like what they're doing with whistle blowers, where there's more prosecution with whistle blowers, that's a whole nother issue.
Radley Balko: Right. And you know, I'm sure the Obama people would say that they're not funding police militarization. That they're funding, you know, community policing and supplementing cash strapped police departments to help protect our communities, or whatever. But, you know, the reality is this is how the money gets spent, it gets spent on to beef up, you know military like equipment, military battle grade weapons, you know, to buy armored personnel carriers and tanks and helicopters. I mean that's how the money is getting spent.
And the problem is again, with these community policing grants in particular, I think that Biden, you know Vice President Biden probably has one thing in mind when he endorses this program. But there's no oversight and there's no restriction, so the money gets spend in a way that's very contradictory to that vision.
Rob Kall: Wow, so did, did, the basic idea of community policing is a very bottom up approach that's aimed at integrating police into the community in an old fashioned way really. The way it used to be fifty, a hundred years ago, right?
Radley Balko: Kind of, I mean, it's, it's an aspiration to a form of policing that I think, you know, we should adopt. I don't know that, I think it's a bit idealic (sic) to say that there was a time when community policing, this type of community policing actually existed. I'm not sure that's true. There was, there was a time when police did walk beats and were much more closely tied to the neighborhoods that they patrolled, the problem is that, that's also known as the patronage era. And that was at a time when police, the job of police officer was actually an appointed position, a political boss appointed you to the job. And so was a very political position, and there was a lot of corruption, and it was still you know a lot of police abuse. So I don't think there was ever a, ya know, kind of halcyon young days of community policing. I'm not saying it's not something that we should strive for, because you know it's been tried, it's been successful. But yeah I would caution against kind of harping back to a better era, cause I'm not sure there really was one.
Rob Kall: Okay, well let's take a station ID, and then we'll get back to the history of policing. This is Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show NJ1360AM, out of Washington Township reaching metro Philly and south Jersey sponsored by Oped news.com. A website where police get a lot of criticism for when they do the wrong things, and I'm speaking with Radley Balko, the author of Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of Americas Police Forces . You make it really clear in the book that you're not criticizing police overall, but that there are good cops and there are bad cops. And actually what you say is it's not so much the cops that are the problem, it's the politics that are the problem. Maybe before we get into the history you can talk about that.
Radley Balko: Yeah, I mean you know, obviously there are bad cops, there are rogue cops, and they deserve to be criticized and they should be help accountable. But the point I'm trying to make with the book is, you know, we got to where we are because of bad policies that were pushed and passed by public officials. And that's really where we need to focus, you know, the blame and the efforts at reform. Because you know you can, you can fill police departments with, you know, the most conscientious well intended police officers in the country. But if it's a bad system that's loaded with bad incentives, the good cops are either going to leave in frustration, or they're going to turn bad, or they're just going to be miserable at their jobs.
So this is a policy issue. We have, you know, police departments that are recruiting the wrong types of people. If you look at, you can go to You tube and type in police recruitment video, and you'll see the video the police department sent out to the, you know, colleges and high schools to recruit new officers. And not all of them, but a disturbingly high percentage of the videos emphasize the wrong aspect of policing, and they emphasize kind of the kicking ass and taking names side of the job. The images of cops, you know, tackling people, and shooting at people, and sicking dogs, and you know rappelling out of helicopters.
And if you know, you think back to your high school or college days and you think who amongst your classmates would be attracted to a job that involves those types of actions, and then ask yourself if you would want to live in a community where those people were police officers. You can see that, the problem here that the very first step in the process is they're appealing to people who, would want the job for all the wrong reasons.
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