Peter B. Kraska

Militarizing American Police: The Rise and Normalization of Paramilitary Units

This paper examines overlooked developments in contemporary policing: the growth in the number of, and a significant shift in the character of. United States police paramilitary units (PPUs). A survey of all police departments serving cities of 50,000 people or more provides the first comprehensive national data on PPUs. Findings document a rise in the number of PPUs, an escalation in their level of activity, a normalization of these units into mainstream policing, and a direct link between PPUs and the U.S. military. These findings reflect the aggressive turn many law enforcement agencies are assuming behind the rhetoric of community and problem-oriented policing reforms.

Militarizing mayberry and beyond: Making sense of American paramilitary policing

National-level data, derived from a survey of all police agencies serving 25,000 to 50,000 people, document a previously unrecognized phenomenon: the growth in the number, an expansion of the activities, and the movement toward the normalization of small-locality police paramilitary units (PPU). Beside examining the implications of these findings for small-locality policing, we situate this phenomenon within broader paramilitary changes in the police. To begin the process of making theoretical sense of PPUs, we refute the commonsense notion that their rise is a response to changes in crime. We then contextualize the phenomenon by discussing the lingering influence of the military model, the recent popularity of paramilitary subculture, changing police tactics in the war on drugs, police reform efforts, and the quest to modernize the criminal justice apparatus. Noting similar developments in corrections, we conclude that this phenomenon should not be seen merely as a peculiar manifestation of get-tough pol...

Enjoying militarism: Political/personal dilemmas in studying U.S. police paramilitary units

This paper makes sense of an irony, experienced while conducting field research, by linking it to broader social, political, and cultural processes. The objectives in doing so are not exclusively theoretical, practical, or methodological, but all three. Explaining the irony necessitates a theoretical and epistemological discussion of the relationship between the dualities of agency/structure, micro/macro, and personal/political. The ethnographic description of a police paramilitary units “training session,” and the authors reaction, provide a forum for exposing the practical implications of this micro research event: a strengthening of paramilitaristic policing, state tendencies to militarize social problems in the post-Cold War era, and a revitalization of paramilitarism in popular culture. Finally, the enactment of “self-reflexivity” as the methodological foundation of this study demonstrates its utility.

To serve and pursue: Exploring police sexual violence against women

This study identifies and examines an unexplored criminological phenomenon, termed here police sexual violence. Analysis and interpretation of quantitative data and case studies are used to explore the subject. Two data sets, one from federal litigation cases and the other from a media source, provide the material for examining the known incidence, distribution, and nature of this form of police crime and sexual violence against women. The data include 124 cases of police sexual violence; 37 of these are sexual assault and rape cases committed by on-duty police officers against female citizens. The analysis of case studies draws on and integrates feminist and police studies literature, allowing for the development of a police sexual violence continuum and the exploration of theoretical, conceptual, and practical issues. The conclusion explores the cultural and structural context within which police sexual violence against women occurs.

Criminal Justice Theory: Toward Legitimacy and an Infrastructure

Within Criminal Justice/Criminology, “theory” is generally assumed to be concerned with crime and crime rates. Studying criminal justice is tacitly, and sometimes explicitly, relegated to the narrow role of evaluative and descriptive scholarship. This article explores the reasons for our field’s failure to recognize the importance of developing an accessible and well‐recognized theoretical infrastructure not about crime, but criminal justice and crime control phenomena. It examines the complexity of our object of study when theorizing criminal justice and the efficacy of organizing criminal justice theory using multiple “theoretical orientations.” The conclusion stresses the essentiality of criminal justice theory, with particular emphasis on academic credibility, quality research, informed practices, and sound pedagogy.

Trafficking in Bodily Perfection: Examining the Late‐Modern Steroid Marketplace and Its Criminalization

Illicit steroid and human growth hormone use by professional athletes has received significant media and political attention in the last five years. The resulting political pressure has compelled federal law enforcement to prosecute serious new control initiatives. To date, no academic research inquiring into the nature of this illicit industry exists. This study fills this void through the mixed methods approach—employing both ethnographic field research and quantitative content analysis. The ethnographic data demonstrate a fascinating late‐modern trafficking scheme where the central informant established an apartment‐based manufacturing operation, converting raw steroid chemical compounds ordered off the Internet into injectable solutions. Content analysis of 186 websites that supply anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) demonstrates that these grounded findings are indicative of a much larger phenomenon. Our final analysis examines the broader theoretical relevance of the ethnographic findings through contextualizing them within macro‐structural (supply) and macro‐cultural (demand) social forces.

A textual critique of community policing: police adaption to high modernity

Employs the semiotic method to explore community policing reform and its use of language as a form of social control. Uses postmodern theoretical and methodological filters to clarify the discussion. Sees community policing more as a realignment of police institution’s language and symbols to better fit changes in society.

Normalising Police Militarisation, Living in Denial

The militarisation of policing in the USA continues to be a critical area of enquiry for both the police and the society. Recent events in Boston speak to the centrality of this area of research for understanding state responses to an array of social problems, including violence, terrorism and civil unrest. The police capacity to organise and distribute state-sponsored violence as well as the ability to shape institutional appearances while doing so, impacts issues of civil rights, domestic order and the quality of political life in a democracy. The importance of the topic, coupled with the fact that we have made a modest contribution to the literature on this phenomenon, led us to read Garth den Heyers essay with keen interest.