Militarization of police

The militarization of police (Sometimes referred to as the paramilitarization of police in some media) is the use of military equipment and tactics by law enforcement officers. This includes the use of armored personnel carriers (APCs), assault rifles, submachine guns, flashbang grenades, sniper rifles, and SWAT (special weapons and tactics) teams. The militarization of law enforcement is also associated with intelligence agency–style information gathering aimed at the public and political activists and with a more aggressive style of law enforcement. Criminal justice professor Peter Kraska has defined militarization of police as "the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model".

Observers have noted the militarizing of the policing of protests. Since the 1970s, riot police have fired at protesters using guns with rubber bullets or plastic bullets. Tear gas, which was developed by the United States Army for riot control in 1919, is still widely used against protesters. The use of tear gas in warfare is prohibited by various international treaties that most states have signed; however, its law enforcement or military use for domestic or non-combat situations is permitted.

Concerns about the militarization of police have been raised by both ends of the political spectrum in the United States, with both the libertarian Cato Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) voicing criticisms of the practice. The Fraternal Order of Police has spoken out in favor of equipping law enforcement officers with military equipment, claiming that it increases the officers' safety and enables them to protect members of the public and other first responders (e.g., firefighters and emergency medical services personnel). However, a 2017 study showed that police forces which received military equipment were more likely to have violent encounters with the public, regardless of local crime rates. A 2018 study found that militarized police units in the United States were more frequently deployed to communities with large shares of African-Americans, even after controlling for local crime rates.

Many countries also have at least one gendarmerie, which is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population.

France classifies some weapons as "intermediary force weapons" such as its LBD 40 refitted version of the Swiss B&T GL06 military grenade launcher, which is used in riot police situations or against individual persons in more specific interventions.

While not having the full power of military guns, some weapons are heavier than regular police weaponry and are still lethal. These are often referred to with the "limited lethality" appellation.

In 2013 "... Brazil saw countrywide demonstrations protesting a lack of basic services while the country was spending billions on the World Cup and the Olympics. The unprepared and overreacting police forces responded in a way that shocked the largely middle-class protesters. The police, using "non-lethal" weapons like pepper spray and rubber bullets while dressed from head to toe in ninja-like full battle gear, indiscriminately arrested both violent 'black bloc' demonstrators, known for their confrontational tactics and anarchist views, along with non-violent protestors marching peacefully." As a result, "... calls for de-militarization of the police—from social movements, non-governmental organizations, and even segments of the police itself—became widespread and remain one of the legacies of the World Cup". The Brazilian "... Military Police today, while not officially a wing of the Armed Forces, remains an institution with a strict military hierarchy, training that retains a military ideology, and practices that frequently resemble occupying forces conquering enemy territories".

The units that responded to the protests were Shock Police, units specialized in riot control. The Military Police is an ancillary and reserve force of the Army, under the General Inspectorate of Military Police, being that a part of Land Operations Command. But, in time of peace, the state governor act as commander-in-chief of the Police and Firefighting Corps, according to the Constitution of Brazil, article 144, 6th paragraph, where it is said that the "Military Police and Firefighter Corps, ancillary and reserve forces of the Army, subordinate themselves, with the Civil Police, to the state and Federal District governors."