The logistics of police power: Armored vehicles, colonial boomerangs, and strategies of circulation

Images of police armored vehicles in Ferguson and Baltimore have been influential in a public conversation about the militarization of the police. However, recent critical and abolitionist work on policing rejects the concept of “militarization” for obscuring the longstanding histories and institutional connections between military and police apparatuses. By following the transfers of armored vehicles to police, this article illuminates the logistical pathways that connect colonial warfare and domestic policing, adding an account of the material composition of police power to the historical work of critical and abolitionist thinkers. The article proceeds through a critical reading of records of the Defense Logistics Agency, tracking the transfer of surplus armored vehicles to the police. Designated as “high-visibility property” by the Defense Logistics Agency, these vehicles testify to the materiality of police power. The article then tracks the visibility and materiality of these vehicles as they are deployed in urban and suburban spaces and considers their unique capacity to suppress the democratic energies of crowds. Tracking the armored vehicle provides a way to ask how the rigid lines of fortified urban space are organized into mobile vectors and where ongoing processes of colonization enter these spatial processes.

Integrated information support for the production and services on the basis of open technical vocabulary

Among the various directions in the development of Russian processes for standardizing products, both military and civilian, taking into account the international system for standardizing the information flow of data on products and technologies, the questions of improving of master data as a material carrier of information. The problem of data quality is payed increased attention, especially in countries of Western Europe, and primarily the United States. Developed and implemented are the corresponding series of international standards - ISO-8000, regulating the structure, syntax, semantics, portability and other attributes of data, and ISO-22745, determining their quality. Both standards were proposed by the US Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).

The Risks of Operational Militarization: Increased Conflict Against Militarized Police

The current state of race relations in the United States have brought to light the issue of the militarization of local police, where officers are being provided with unused equipment from the government’s war chest through the 1033 Program. But, is this increase in militarization beneficial, or does it harm relations between citizens and police? Using data on purchases provided by the Defense Logistics Agency, this paper analyzes effects of military purchases on assaults on police officers. Fixed effects negative binomial regressions on state-month level data show that stockpiling of material militarization equipment (guns, armor, and clothing) exhibits a statistically significant decrease in assaults, with guns showing no significant relation on assaults. However, operational militarization purchases (surveillance, sonar, and radar) lead to an increase of assaults, suggesting that there may be unforeseen consequences of increased militarization due to a change of structure and information gathering.

LOGISTYCZNA AGENCJA SIŁ ZBROJNYCH USA- ZADANIA, STRUKTURA, ZASADY FUNKCJONOWANIA

W pracy przedstawiono genezę powstania i rozwój, statutowe cele i zadania oraz aktualną strukturę organizacyjno-funkcjonalną Defense Logistics Agency wspierającej US-Army w zakresie wszechstronnego zabezpieczenia logistycznego. Szczególną uwagę zwrócono na systemy klasyfikacyjne środków materiałowych, organizację transportu zaopatrzeniowego oraz zasady wycofywania środków materiałowych i sprzętu z użytkowania. Podkreślono także udział i wykorzystanie sił morskich w systemie funkcjonowania DLA. Zastosowana w pracy metoda badawcza bazuje na analizie materiałów źródłowych, syntezie metodologicznej oraz uogólnieniach i wnioskowaniu. Główna teza orzekająca o decydującym znaczeniu DLA w systemie zabezpieczenia logistycznego US-Army została zweryfikowana pozytywnie.