When Peace Officers Dress For War Summary

Joshua Hahn-Varona
4/21/15

 

Militarizing police has psychological consequences for both the community the police force serves, and the officers themselves. As "When Peace Officers Dress for War" points out, police officers who dress and act military-like, become military-like overtime automatically. It makes "their uniform and vocabulary of war reinforces their mind-sets" and "they become distanced from the community."

            This distance from the community that a military-like police force causes is a dangerous thing. The trust that a police force is there to help a community is eliminated by the idea that rather than helping, they are controlling a community. A police officer, as the article calls them “Peace Officers” should be just that; a peace officer. Their goal should not be to scare a community with their fancy and dangerous equipment so that the community is terrified of what could be used against them if they commit a crime or protest, etc.

   

Dr. Carl's TED Talk

Joshua Hahn-Varona

4/7/2015

  
   Dr. Carl's TED Talk was about his book called "High Price." He explains the problems with the war on drugs today. The media paints horrible pictures for people who use drugs but he explains that most of the things we are told about drugs are not true. For example, he did a study about how if you give a drug addict an alternative to their drug of choice, they will most of teh time chose the alternative if the alternative is good enough. In his case, he offered money or store vouchers.

   Dr. Carl calls for decriminalization of all drugs (NOT legalization) that is to make it legal to posses drugs so that our prisons arn't mostly full of people on petty drug charges.

   I found Dr. Carl's information quite interesting. I don't know that it will ever get much traction today but if I did, I think our country may be a little better off. Of course, I don't think people should be doing drugs anyways but at least, as Dr. Carl puts it: "Drug charges won't ruin their lives." If his ideas go through.