Police Militarization Linked to More Fatal Shootings in 1033 Program Data

Why This Question Matters

Casey Delehanty, Jack Mewhirter, Ryan Welch, and Jason Wilks investigate whether giving military equipment to local police is associated with more violent policing. The debate over “militarized policing” has grown alongside high-profile officer-involved shootings; this paper tests whether receipt of surplus military gear is tied to greater civilian harm.

How Militarization Might Change Police Behavior

The authors argue that transfers of military equipment increase multiple dimensions of law-enforcement militarization—material (weapons, vehicles), cultural (attitudes and symbols), organizational (structures and chains of command), and operational (tactics and deployment). Those shifts, the theory holds, can change how officers perceive threats and when they use force.

What the 1033 Program Does

The U.S. Department of Defense’s 1033 program makes excess military equipment available to local law-enforcement agencies (LEAs). Variation in the amount and type of equipment transferred across jurisdictions provides the authors with leverage to examine whether greater transfers are associated with more violent outcomes.

Data and Methods

• The study exploits cross-jurisdictional variation in 1033 transfers and estimates a series of regression models to probe associations between transfers and violent outcomes.
• Three dependent variables are used to capture police violence: the number of civilian casualties, the change in the number of civilian casualties, and the number of dogs killed by police.

Key Findings

• Across all modeled specifications, the authors find a positive and statistically significant relationship between 1033 transfers and fatalities from officer-involved shootings.
• The paper reports results for multiple outcome measures and robustness checks to assess the consistency of that association.

Why Readers Should Care

These findings speak directly to policy debates about whether federal programs that funnel military equipment to local police have unintended consequences for public safety. By connecting equipment transfers to officer-involved shooting fatalities, the study contributes empirical evidence to ongoing discussions about oversight, restrictions, and alternatives to militarized gear in American policing.