External resources relating to Demilitarising policing
While calls to defund the RCMP in the wake of widespread protests against police brutality have left some people incredulous, it’s worth considering a comparatively recent historical precedent.
After the murder of two Somali men by members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment in 1993, the federal government disbanded the unit. A public inquiry revealed widespread racism, brutal hazing rituals and a concerted effort to cover it all up. Defence officials argued a familiar line – a few bad apples – but it was hard to believe when weighed against the damning video and photographic evidence. Rex Murphy summarized it neatly when he said, “We promised them peacekeepers, and, in some cases, we sent them thugs.” Indeed, some of our supposedly elite soldiers were ill-tempered sadists, the unit a dumping ground for discipline cases and white supremacists. Public support for the military plummeted: What kind of Canadian soldiers keep a Confederate flag in their barracks?
For the past week, our social media and television screens have been dominated by images of police officers in head-to-toe body armor wielding batons, pepper-ball guns, riot shields, and teargas against mostly peaceful protesters. Many Americans are now more certain than ever that we need to “demilitarize” our police.
Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun crime in the world. In 2014 there were just six gun deaths, compared to 33,599 in the US. What is the secret?
When you enter any gendarmerie post, Turkey’s paramilitary rural police force in 81 provinces and 957 towns, the first slogan on the wall is always Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s words: “The Turkish gendarmerie is an army of law.” The gendarmerie, with its 175-year history, has a current strength of about 190,000 (31 generals; 28,000 officers and noncommissioned officers; 40,000 professional specialist sergeants; 3,500 civilian workers/clerks and 117,000 conscripts). It is responsible for 80% of Turkey’s territory. With its commando brigades, air elements, special forces battalions and van-based corps, which is Turkey’s key unit for dealing with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Gendarmerie Command is a fully-fledged military machine.
But Ataturk’s words in every gendarmerie post may be removed in November, after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that the Gendarmerie Command would be detached from the Chief of Staff of the Turkish armed forces and attached to the Ministry of Interior...
The recent race riots in Ferguson, Missouri put a spotlight on the militarization of police in the United States. A panel discussion at the School of International Service on “The Militarization of Policing in Comparative Perspective” addressed this trend at home and abroad, looking at the United States, Europe, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia...
...the actual content of Maduro’s announcements are consistent with his policies over the past eight months and should cause concern as they represent a new stage in the militarization of citizen security...
The Honduras government plans to create a new force of 4,500 community police, and to reorganize the structure of existing police units, though neither plan seems capable of addressing the deep rooted issues undermining the country’s security forces...
The report, Preach What You Practice: The Separation of Military and Police Roles in the Americas, from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) provides a background briefing on key distinctions between military and police functions. It calls on the Obama Administration to change direction, and stop encouraging the military forces of other countries to take on roles that would be illegal for the U.S. Armed Forces to carry out at home. The authors, a team of WOLA’s regional security experts, set out specific steps to be taken by both United States and countries in the region.