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by Debby Yoder, AROUND METRO ATLANTA -- The face of America’s police
departments has changed considerably in recent years. Gone are the police cars
with the bubble light atop and “to protect and serve” emblazoned on the doors.
Many of today’s police wear military style uniforms and drive re-purposed
military vehicles. And yet the crime rate has been steadily falling for decades.
Do police really need these imposing, bullet-proof, fuel inefficient forms of transport?
The
police have an economic incentive to continue to build their arsenals and
deploy their SWAT teams for everyday events. When they seize property that may
have been obtained through illegal activity, they are allowed to keep the
assets in the same way invading armies claim the treasures of the conquered as
their own. This provides an incentive for police to aggressively pursue crimes which
include drugs and cash, some rather petty. One the other hand white collar
crimes involving far larger sums of money, technically eligible for the same
types of asset forfeiture, are addressed much less aggressively. When was last
time you’ve heard of a SWAT teams storming a bank engaged in illegal and discriminatory
lending practices?
Debby Yoder is a contributor to Social Shutter and a Sociology major at Georgia State University. She can be contacted at debby.yoder@gmail.com.
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