3 ms·

In your country, are the Fire service, Ambulance service, or Coast Guard, necessarily military? Because they were uniforms, have rank structures, operate heavy

by cstross 13y ago

In your country, are the Fire service, Ambulance service, or Coast Guard, necessarily military? Because they were uniforms, have rank structures, operate heavy equipment, and are government employees. (Yes, this is a trick question. In some countries these are paramilitary organizations and services -- or provided by private corporations. But in the UK, they're civilian government agencies that are explicitly non-military. It's possible to have a centralized, hierarchical uniformed state agency that isn't militaries and isn't there to point guns at the public. That's the point I'm trying to make here.) Your secondary point about systems needing to be amenable to reform is a good one. Too much rigidity and inflexibility makes reform hard: but it may also help prevent corruption. Which aspect wins out probably has something to do with the type of people the organization recruits -- are they dedicated to public service, or are they attracted to a role where they get to carry a gun and wear a uniform and are feared by the public? My gut feeling is that authoritarian followers (per Altermayer) are a really bad fit for community policing ... but unfortunately uniformed armed services are attractive to such personality types.

icegreentea 13y ago
I readily accept your first point. I guess I messed up my delivery of the first point. It wasn't meant so much as a rebuttal or counterpoint, but something of a "random aside". The point wasn't that they "militarized" the police, especially in the way militarized is often used today in the context of American law enforcement (with the implications of increased use of aggressive force), but rather that its kinda funny that their solution to trying to back off on the level of violence was to impose aspects of military like control. Of course, in the long view it's pretty obvious why that happened. Consider why modern western militaries are structured and organized the way they are. The state has a monopoly on force, which requires not just the owning the army, but to be able to control the application of force down to the level of individual soldier. Obviously the control can never be perfect, but I think its pretty clear that it typically works well enough. I guess my point is that especially in the context of the 19th century, militarization has two orthogonal aspects, the first being the nature and quantity of force to apply, and the second being control of force, and that when faced with the problem of overly aggressive police action, they sought to apply control by applying aspects of military organization - aspects which the military could claim to "own" first, just because they were only groups around with that type of organization at that time.

by cstross 13y ago

icegreentea 13y ago

I readily accept your first point. I guess I messed up my delivery of the first point. It wasn't meant so much as a rebuttal or counterpoint, but something of a "random aside". The point wasn't that they "militarized" the police, especially in the way militarized is often used today in the context of American law enforcement (with the implications of increased use of aggressive force), but rather that its kinda funny that their solution to trying to back off on the level of violence was to impose aspects of military like control. Of course, in the long view it's pretty obvious why that happened. Consider why modern western militaries are structured and organized the way they are. The state has a monopoly on force, which requires not just the owning the army, but to be able to control the application of force down to the level of individual soldier. Obviously the control can never be perfect, but I think its pretty clear that it typically works well enough. I guess my point is that especially in the context of the 19th century, militarization has two orthogonal aspects, the first being the nature and quantity of force to apply, and the second being control of force, and that when faced with the problem of overly aggressive police action, they sought to apply control by applying aspects of military organization - aspects which the military could claim to "own" first, just because they were only groups around with that type of organization at that time.