The Quasi-Army: Law Enforcement, Value Judgments, & the Posse Comitatus Act

Abstract

Criticism of police militarism is abundant, and for good reason. Militarism in policing is a grossly disproportionate reaction to the crises American police and the American public face today. Militarism does not increase officer safety, harms public perception of police, and leads to increased civilian death, without any appreciable benefit to crime reduction. And yet, despite the plentiful critiques of militarization, scholarship has left behind an important argument on the place of militarism in American policing stemming from the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (PCA). As it was passed in 1878, the PCA prohibited using “any part of the Army of the United States” to enforce domestic law. Today, the PCA prohibits using the Army or the Air Force to enforce domestic law, absent express authorization from Congress or the Constitution. This Article explores why the PCA offers a strong and important signal that militarism has no place in American policing.