1033 Program Leads to Increased UOF

[HCM]

I suspect agencies taking advantage of the 1033 program might have a pre-existing culture that qualifies as “militarized.” The MRAP is likely a sign/signal of a militarized culture within the agency, not the cause of that culture.
-What comparative controls were employed in their study? An example using the MRAP might be to compare like sized/mission agencies with MRAPs vs those with civilian armored vehicles such as a Bearcat.

I suspect the use of DRMO for “aggressive” equipment is the sign of a “militarized” agency culture, not the cause of it. Taking away the equipment will not change that culture, only deprive the constituents of the benefits that equipment can provide or cause increased expense. Bearcats aren’t cheap, so that MRAP might save the community some serious coin if it needs an armored vehicle.

MRAPs are so cheap you cant afford them. They are free but tend to be money pits and a hassle to get work done one. Any agency that can afford one should and usually does buy a Bearcat since it is built on a Ford commercial truck chassis.

That begs the question do the agencies using MRAPS instead of Bearcats have smaller budgets ?

If so, how does that affect recruiting, selection, retention and training ? If your agency pays less they have issues attracting and retaining the best people and those budget issues may in turn affect the quality and volume of training.

Poorly trained or under trained cops making bad decisions is like a self fulfilling prophecy.

[DpdG]

There are 2 other potential issues I can see:
-The New England states have been hard hit by the opioid epidemic, which really started to take off in the early-mid 2010s. This lead to significant upticks in crime in general and violent crime specifically, especially in some of the rural areas that also lost huge swaths of lumber industry in the recession.
-In NH from 2005 to 2016, there were a total of 32 civilians and 10 officers shot in officer involved incidents (fatal and non-fatal) and the highest number of deaths per year was 6. Such a small sample, and its susceptibility to annual deviations cause by a single incident, has to make legitimate statistical analysis nearly impossible.

Source: https://www.concordmonitor.com/New-H...e-2005-1975055

[DpdG]

MRAPs are so cheap you cant afford them. They are free but tend to be money pits and a hassle to get work done one. Any agency that can afford one should and usually does buy a Bearcat since it is built on a Ford commercial truck chassis.

That begs the question do the agencies using MRAPS instead of Bearcats have smaller budgets ?

If so, how does that affect recruiting, selection, retention and training ? If your agency pays less they have issues attracting and retaining the best people and those budget issues may in turn affect the quality and volume of training.

Poorly trained or under trained cops making bad decisions is like a self fulfilling prophecy.

I'm in complete agreement with you on the economy of the things. I'm guessing many don't get the preventative maintenance the military proscribes, but ultimately when it breaks they can send it back to Uncle Sugar and get another one. The other factor is the MRAPs really aren't very well suited to the LE mission- they're too tall and heavy (think bridge restrictions) and they are very space inefficient compared to a Bearcat or the like. I suspect the draw for a low budget agency is they can sell the lower (free) up front cost to their fiscal oversight entity and bury the maintenance costs in their generic "vehicle maintenance" budget.

As to the greater agency issues you mentioned, I would wager it makes a low budget agency look more capable than they actually are- "We're a full service agency offering opportunities for specialty assignments such as our fully equipped tactical team!" It's never a good sign when an agency of 30-50 sworn has a 20+ person tactical team. It makes me think their selection standards for team members is woefully low.

I guess my bottom line is perhaps over enthusiastic DRMO participation could be a good indicator of agencies that deserve scrutiny, not that the program causes the bad behavior.

[TC215]

The local agency I worked for (and was on the SWAT team) is a medium-sized agency, and we had an MRAP. We never used it on a call-out....we did get it out once when three deputies in a neighboring county were pinned down in a ditch by a guy shooting at them with an AK (and shot another deputy in the face). The guy ran out the back of the house by the time we got there.

We also had a couple of up-armored humvees that we used occasionally, and were nice to have.

The Bearcat would obviously be preferable, but there's only so much grant money to go around, and there was no way our agency was going to pay for one.

[Trooper224]

Oh yeah, "militarizing the police". That's such a new concept.

Women's machine gun squad New York Police Reserve, 1918.

[TGS]

Nothing breaks up a riot like the good ole' potato digger...