New study reveals we've militarized our police at the expense of civil liberties.

Although crime rates are at the lowest they have been in over 30 years, the number of arrests has declined only slightly between 2009 and 20102 and the U.S. still spends more than $100 billion on police every year to fund 714,921 sworn police officers and an increasing number of militarized police units. 

The combined numbers of police, encouraged by federal funding and aggressive policing, are representative of a continued misguided approach to keeping communities safe. Because the Department of Justice considers “successful law enforcement policies” as those that increase the number of people arrested and imprisoned, governments are shortchanging the public in regards to public safety at a very high cost. Policymakers should be directing funds toward true community-based and collaborative policing efforts, prevention, intervention, treatment, education, and a host of other programs and initiatives that have been shown to promote healthy, safe communities. When arrests are the bottom line instead of public safety and healthy, prosperous communities, our priorities are skewed.

Militaristic policing does more harm than good. Drug task forces, S.W.A.T. teams, gang task forces, and other militaristic styles of policing have resulted in corruption, deaths of innocent people, wrongful convictions, and the disproportionate arrest of people of color. These types of police forces have done very little to improve public safety, but significantly harm communities and the image of police.

http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/rethinkingtheblues_final.pdf

Justice Policy Institute executive summary:

http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/rethinkingtheblues_executive_summary.pdf