Friday, 07.25.08

Our Dark Knights

Warner Brothers Pictures

The Dark Knight earned a record-setting $158.4 million in its opening weekend.

In a memorable scene towards the end of The Dark Knight, the Joker turns to a mobster and diabolically sneers, "This town needs a better class of criminal, and I'm gonna give it to 'em." And this promise he fulfills. The film's anarchistic uber-criminal goes on a wanton, murderous rampage, terrorizing Gotham City by creatively slaughtering its denizens.

Fear of the sort of brazen, epic violence depicted in The Dark Knight is what keeps real-life police chiefs up at night, and not without reason. As we witnessed on September 11, America's cities are not immune to popcorn-flick scale devastation at the hands of ruthless madmen. And so big-city police departments turn to Batman-style tactics to fight crime.

Called in to evolving crises of public safety when the bat-signal beckons, Batman is Gotham City's ultimate crime-fighter. In the real world, a city's SWAT team plays the role of Batman. Both are bedecked with body armor, brandish top of the line firepower, conceal their faces behind masks and favor the element of surprise. And like Batman, the SWAT team was originally conceived as an elite force designed to respond to such rare crisis situations as hostage standoffs.

But SWAT team officers today are handling more and more routine policing duties in many of our cities (according to a study conducted by sociologists Peter Kraska and Louis Cubellis, the number of SWAT team call-outs in America's cities increased five-fold between 1980 and 1995)—this despite the fact that the reality of typical urban street crime is significantly more banal than the depiction of crime in The Dark Knight. Most criminal acts are petty crimes of opportunity rather than fiendishly orchestrated acts of mayhem. And even the most heinous of crimes are usually swift and isolated, meaning that no matter how rapidly officers respond to the crime scene it is highly unlikely they will be able to foil the crime in progress. Thus, a consensus has emerged among police policy experts that a proactive, problem-oriented approach to policing is warranted rather than the reactive, crime-fighter approach depicted in The Dark Knight. The primary objective of police officers should be to stamp out factors in society which give rise to crime, not simply to cut 911 response times and lock up offenders.

Experts agree that essential to an effective proactive policing approach is the development of trusting relationships between police officers and the residents of the communities they serve. When residents trust the police, they are more likely to ditch the "anti-snitch" mentality so pervasive in inner cities today and act in their community's best interests by apprising the police of criminal plots, the names of local gang leaders, the whereabouts of illicit weapons caches, etc.

But when SWAT teams are used to patrol city streets or serve no-knock warrants to non-violent offenders, as is too often the case today, the result is the erosion of public trust in the police. It is hard for an officer wielding a Heckler & Koch submachine gun to develop a congenial rapport with grandma at the local flea market. Take one look at the infamous image of a federal agent taking custody of Elian Gonzalez and you will understand why.

There are a number of possible explanations as to why SWAT teams are being increasingly utilized in ways that undermine proactive policing efforts. But one likely reason also helps explain why millions of gung-ho fans flocked to the box office over the weekend: the cool factor. Batman gets to fend off bad guys with some nifty gadgets and he oozes cool through his menacing, jet-black garb while doing so (George Clooney's campy, nippled batsuit being the obvious exception). Similarly, police officers undoubtedly think it's cooler to rappel from a chopper than walk a street-beat. As Professor Kraska put it in an interview with BBC News, "These elite units are highly culturally appealing to certain sections of the community…The chance to strap on a vest, grab a semi-automatic weapon and go out on a mission is for some people an exciting reason to join." And this goes for police chiefs too, who one suspects yearn to showcase their cool SWAT teams as frequently as possible.

But our world is not drawn by Frank Miller. Batman belongs in the movie theater, not patrolling our streets.

— Stephen Bartenstein

Filed Under: Batman, Crime, Policing, SWAT, The Dark Knight

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