Paramilitary Police Need Hurts Recruiting
Jack Love at New Mexico Law and Society questions the recruiting requirements for Police in his neck of the woods. Apparently Albuquerque is experiencing a severe shortage of police officers at the moment.
First, the idea of paramilitary police should be examined. Some police ought to be paramilitary, just like there should be some other specialty teams. Mental health, SWAT, close-encounter rough and ready teams, of one or more, should be available. But the tedious, boring, hard and dangerous work of patrolling and answering calls may be handled by officers without special qualifications, and without special physical attributes.
He goes on to argue that not all p[olice recruits need to fit the SWAT profile. I agree in part, but would go further. Yes, the need will always exist for specialized units with young, physically fit officers on the ready to handle dangerous situations.
But, unfortunately, it’s our so called War on Drugs that has caused the recent explosion of paramilitary style raids, and fueled the need for paramilitary police units and tactics. It’s just one more example of how our senseless drug policy in this country is draining resources from where they are truly needed.
