It's a long story whose origins go back to colonial days, but in Balko's hands, an entertaining and illuminating story - as well as depressing and frightening - told with verve and gusto, meticulously researched, and filled with telling historical detail.īalko traces the origins of policing back to the colonies and exposes the tension between fears of a standing army and the need for an effective force to maintain public order.
Written by veteran investigative journalist Radley Balko, who's been covering the drug war, policing, and criminal justice beat for years at places like Reason magazine, the Cato Institute and Huffington Post, Rise of the Warrior Cop explains what happened.
And if not all police officers were really friendly, at least they looked like normal human beings, not winners of a Darth Vader look-alike contest. We didn't have SWAT teams marauding across the landscape. But back then, we still had a working Fourth Amendment and we didn't have the war on drugs at least the drug war that we have today. Even back in the halcyon 1960s, his friendliness toward you was largely determined by your net wealth, your neighborhood, and your race. To be sure, Officer Friendly was always a public relations effort. There may still be a smiling Officer Friendly on the force somewhere these days, but you wouldn't know it, because he's all dressed up in paramilitary gear, looking like an Imperial Storm Trooper, and that smiling face (if it exists at all) is hidden behind the darkened visor of his riot helmet.
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