The End of Policing

Vitale compares liberal democratic approaches to policing to that of communist police forces. The act of “monitoring and disrupting political activity through surveillance, infiltration, criminal entrapment, and repressing protests” are tools that policing under both ideologies have adopted (197). Arguably, both regimes could not survive without these practices and herein lies Vitale’s main argument. Politics and policing are integral to each other’s survival. Vitale turns the reader’s attention to recent surveillance of Muslims as part of the War on Terror as an example (201). Older examples include the Palmer Raids (1919), the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) (1956), and the Red Squads (1904-present). From infiltrating potential communists and affiliated groups to spying on the Black Civil Rights movement leaders such as Martin Luther King, these government agencies have little regard for constitutional rights and laws. Despite public outcry, new threats, real or not, continue to incite fear. As a result, white Americans are willing to sacrifice certain freedoms as these agencies focus predominantly on people of color. Thus, they are unaware of or simply do not care about the consequences that this brings with it.

Vitale argues that freedoms given in exchange for security have underlying issues that the public are not aware of. First, paramilitary techniques fail to provide public safety. The opposite is true, as evidenced by riot control mechanisms enforced in Ferguson, Missouri. Second, Vitale argues that the right to protest is a constitutional one. Again, the example of Ferguson highlights how police have violated citizens’ First Amendment rights. The threat of potential violence or destruction of property is not a sufficient excuse in doing so. In the case of Ferguson, Vitale argues that politicians are liable and should be addressing their constituents with political solutions: “Local officials could also have attempted to dial back the police’s posture toward protest as threatening and illegitimate” (217). Equally, Vitale calls for the role of police in terrorism investigations to be curtailed. So long as political bias exists and police continue to act as agents of moral authority, Vitale believes that these abuses of rights will continue.