The Warrior Cop

Brenda De La Pena

October 13, 2016

Special Issues in Criminal Justice 4340

Book Report for Rise of the Warrior Cop

Arguments

Balko’s main arguments on this book consist on the militarization of policing and SWAT teams. His main concern is that these policing techniques are making law enforcement lose focus from what they were originally built for. He also talks about how the war on drugs has had to do with the issues we’re facing today with our police techniques. He suggests that they should do more “community policing” so that people don’t look at them in a negative way. It makes sense that if we only see police or SWAT or any kind of law enforcement agency, when something bad happens, it’s obvious that we’re going to associate them with

Their excessive force, most of the time, creates a problem that isn’t even there to begin with. He talks about the alarming rates on which the government is using these teams to combat situations that were not meant for them originally. For instance, SWAT was created to respond when life threatening circumstances arise, or/and to save lives when in an emergency situation. Not to be called for anything less than that. Now a days, SWAT is seen constantly in situations that are nowhere near that and are using excessive force on events and individuals that are not calling for it. Another theme he wrote about was how the drug war has changes our law enforcement and their relationship with the people they were hired to protect. As I mentioned before, we are accustomed to seeing police in negative situations which only makes us think of them in a negative way. Instead of seeing them as people we can rely on and feel save with, we’re constantly trying to avoid them and avoid the problems come with them. To me, those were the most important themes of this

We should make more conscious about these issues and come forth with them. The best way to try to fix these problems, is by making them very public. To aware more people of this and maybe fight or think of a solution. I believe something big has to be done to avoid any more problems with these abuses of excessive force, racism, prejudice and many more. It’s almost impossible to talk about excessive force without the word “racism” in our minds. It’s incredible that to this year, we’re still having problems with police abusing innocent people. I’m not against these agencies, and I don’t want to judge their methods of training but I do believe, they should stop and realize what is going on and what is it that they’re doing wrong to foment this type of behavior within their employees. So in my opinion, more people have to be aware of the extremely high rates in which SWAT is being used and for what situations they’re being used in. Also, what type of training and weaponry they’re being funded with and with what purpose. I believe people should know and look into this to be better informed of what the people that were hired to protect them, end up being used by the government for other irrelevant