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[–] Asinus 0 points 12 points 12 points (+12|-0) ago
While I agree with the overall premise that the police have become overly aggressive and number of people in prison is way too much, I would disagree as to the reason why. The article is claiming that it seems that it is racially motivated in nature to keep African-Americans in the inner city. I would say it has everything to do with drugs.For example, over half the population in federal prisons are there due to a drug charge. Crimes associated with drugs tend to spike whenever a new drug is introduced into the market. You had heroin in the 60's, cocaine during the 70's, crack during the 80's, and meth during the 90's. All of these are highly addictive in nature and will bring out the worst in people. It will make anyone go from model citizen to someone who will commit murder to get their next high. It seems the common denominator in this equation is the War on Drugs.
When it comes to police militarization, I would say that has to do with cheap or free equipment from the military. This all started in 1990 with the 1033 program. This allowed any police force in the nation to gain access to the latest military hardware. It was/is highly successful and has only recently starting to be scaled back. Who wouldn't want an APC if they could buy one. I believe this hardware changed the police mindset from defense to offense. When all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
Another major item would be the introduction of the Tazer. This allowed the police to become lazy. Before the Tazer, you could only physically restrain the person. This is highly dangerous, so you had an incentive to try to talk the perpetrator down. The Tazer removes this as you can just stun the guy and go on about your day. You can see this mentality in almost every single Tazer video that is out there. In very few cases do you see the police doing it the old fashioned way.
Just my thoughts.
[–] epsilona01 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
The War on Drugs and the problem of poverty are very intertwined. This is an economic problem perpetuated by laws that are harsher on and mostly imposed on the poor. Just happens that blacks have been economically disadvantaged (for some unknown reason cause according to new history books) so statistically if someone is black they're far more likely to be poor than someone that's white.
[–] totes-mah-voats 1 point 0 points 1 point (+1|-1) ago
Yep, this is more like it. The article was pretty much big box of race bait.