Government

The Constitution Demands A Stronger Check On Government Raids Against Civilians

Despite decreasing crime across the country, the success of alternatives, and widespread criticism, the business of government raids is booming.

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The practice of government raids against private citizens and their property is a deadly, morally compromising endeavor. Blame for the current state of perpetual tragedy is attributable to many causal factors, of course, including the practices of law enforcement. Yet, much of the blame deserves to be placed on a system where the Fourth Amendment is essentially rendered toothless. The ease in which law enforcement can surpass Fourth Amendment burdens and obtain a warrant, based entirely on vague, error-prone, or even false assertions, to carry out extraordinarily violent intrusions into personal homes should be a crying scandal for any branch of the judiciary. And it is undoubtedly getting innocent people killed.

Compounding the problem is the absence of any evidence that such violent and militarized police tactics enhance law enforcement safety or reduce crime. In fact, in places where raids are common, the bonds that are essential to maintaining law and order rather quickly begin to dissolve with disastrous results. A lesser, more hypocritical kind of resentment towards government that can result from raids manifested itself recently in the media when the FBI executed a single, relatively mild raid on Roger Stone. Now, imagine an American population that is regularly subjected to such raids — for petty offenses and in a degree much more serious than was used against Stone — and you can begin to understand why many now view the practice as being part of an oppressive system of social control.

Given all the undeniable negatives surrounding the practice of government raids, you would be right to ask why it remains so common. The answer, it turns out, is largely due to “fact free fearmongering” that portrays the country and its citizenry as being much more dangerous than it actually is. For years now, critics such as Radley Balko have stressed to the public the deadly consequences of exaggerating the threats faced by law enforcement:

When cops are constantly told that they’re under constant fire, or that every interaction with a citizen could be their last, or that they’re fortunate each time they come home from the job in one piece, it’s absolute poison for police-community relations. That kind of reminder on a regular basis would put anyone on edge. We’re putting police officers in a perpetually combative mindset that psychologically isolates them from the communities they serve. Incessantly telling cops that they’re under fire can condition them to see the people with whom they interact not as citizens with rights, but as potential threats. That not only means more animosity, anger and confrontation, it can also be a barrier to building relationships with people in the community — the sorts of relationships that help police officers solve crimes and keep communities safe.

It also just makes for a miserable work life. If you’ve been trained to think your job is getting progressively more dangerous, and that a significant percentage of the people you encounter on a daily basis want to do you harm, you’re going to be less tolerant of dissent. You’re going to constantly be on-guard, on-edge, and jumpy. That isn’t a state of mind that’s conducive to de-escalation, that opts for persuasion over brute force, or seeks out peaceful conflict resolution. It’s a state of mind ruled by the limbic system, not the frontal lobe. And yes, it’s a state of mind that makes an officer more likely to reach for his gun. Again, this isn’t a comment on cops. It’s a comment on human beings in general.

Another reason I suspect that raids are so prevalent is that also like human beings in general, officers rather enjoy them. For example, there is a telling scene in the documentary Do Not Resist where members of a SWAT team discuss how much they enjoy riding on the side of armored vehicles and busting down the doors of the bad guys. The unfortunate result from all this adrenaline and exaggerated threats however, is you get a lot of jumpy, trigger-happy officers operating under a less stringent standard of discipline than we place on our soldiers in active war zones. The Constitution demands a better check.

The good news is that shifting to a more constitutional respectful form of policing has a proven safety record in our largest cities. And reform-minded law enforcement leaders can significantly reduce the number of tragedies that occur. The bad news is implementing the reforms necessary to adhere to the Constitution remains a colossal struggle. Where even the most modest of reforms face substantial fearmongering.

If there is any hope that respect for the Fourth Amendment can be implemented within our modern system of law enforcement, it will come after the focus is directed more towards trying the system itself, instead of the individual people who profit or are incentivized by the system. In fact, a strong case can be made that the people who are incentivized by corrupt systems are not criminals, they are also victims. And the only way to truly try the system is for everyone to declare how they participated. Because I have no doubt that the majority of law enforcement is in it for Constitutional justice, but like all victims, some might be a little too scared and jumpy given their life experience.

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Tyler Broker is the Free Expression and Privacy Fellow at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. His work has been published in the Gonzaga Law Review and the Albany Law Review. Feel free to email him or follow him on Twitter to discuss his column.

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