National Action/Research on the Military-Industrial Complex. Police on the
Homefront: A Collection of Essays Compiled by NARMIC. Philadelphia: American
Friends Service Committee, 1971. 133 pages.
When Watts burned in 1965, the Pentagon began worrying that local
police and state-controlled National Guards were ill-equipped to deal with
urban insurgency. Once the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of
1968 was passed, a massive infusion of federal funds began pouring into
local and state jurisdictions, mostly through a new Justice Department
agency called the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA). By 1973
the annual appropriation for LEAA programs approached $2 billion. In 1969
the police received 75 percent of the grants, the jails 8 percent, and the
courts 6 percent. Most police departments spent the money on weapons,
riot-control equipment, armored cars, helicopters, and computers.
This collection of essays on LEAA includes a list of colleges and
universities that received LEAA money, abstracts of research grants awarded
by LEAA for 1970, a description of some new weapons and computerized
data-access systems, and a list of all the state planning agencies for LEAA.
Divisions within U.S. society were deep when this book was published in
1971, and many were concerned about the possibility of a police state. Then
Watergate came along and Nixon resigned, relieving much of the pressure.
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