Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation

Mummolo, Jonathan

doi:10.1073/pnas.1805161115

Cited by 231Policing Practices and PerceptionsCriminal Justice and Corrections AnalysisMilitary and Defense Studies

Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation

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Mummolo, Jonathan·2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI 10.1073/pnas.1805161115PMC PMC6140536

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Abstract

The increasingly visible presence of heavily armed police units in American communities has stoked widespread concern over the militarization of local law enforcement. Advocates claim militarized policing protects officers and deters violent crime, while critics allege these tactics are targeted at racial minorities and erode trust in law enforcement. Using a rare geocoded census of SWAT team deployments from Maryland, I show that militarized police units are more often deployed in communities with large shares of African American residents, even after controlling for local crime rates. Further, using nationwide panel data on local police militarization, I demonstrate that militarized policing fails to enhance officer safety or reduce local crime. Finally, using survey experiments-one of which includes a large oversample of African American respondents-I show that seeing militarized police in news reports may diminish police reputation in the mass public. In the case of militarized policing, the results suggest that the often-cited trade-off between public safety and civil liberties is a false choice.

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Authors: Mummolo, J.
Affiliations: Princeton University (US)
Corresponding author: Mummolo, Jonathan
ORCID: Mummolo, Jonathan
Venue: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
Published: 2018-08-20
Volume: 115
Issue: 37
Pages: 9181-9186
ISSN: 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
1091-6490
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1805161115
PMC: PMC6140536
OpenAlex: W2888438187
Cited by: 231
References: 31
Citations by year: 2026: 21 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 3
FWCI: 89.21
Type: journal article
Language: en
Update notices: correction (2021-06-28)
Open access: hybrid
doi.org
Licence: cc-by-nc-nd
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (vor)
Locations: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders: National Science Foundation (15-571)
Topics: Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Military and Defense Studies
Keywords: police militarization, SWAT teams, police officer safety, crime rates, African American community, racial disparities in policing, police reputation, public trust in law enforcement, civil liberties
MeSH terms: Black or African American, Civil Rights, Crime, Humans, Maryland, Law Enforcement

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Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation

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