The Making of a Prison Society

While millions of Americans have been horrified by recent incidents of armored police officers beating and pepper-spraying unarmed, unresisting protesters, those nauseating spectacles are neither novel nor particularly rare. In "Securing America: Strategic Incapacitation and the Policing of Protest Since the 11 September 2001 Terrorist Attacks," a heavily sourced paper recently published in the journal Sociology Compass, Patrick F. Gillham of the University of Idaho observes that current police doctrine dictates that public protests are to be treated as "security threats," and dealt with using methods inspired by "a new penology philosophy."

From that perspective, every public demonstration – however peaceful and orderly it might be – is to be treated as the equivalent of a prison riot. This means that police are free to employ every available means – pre-event surveillance, pre-emptive arrest, hostage-taking, and the use of incapacitating "less-lethal" weaponry – in order to "neutralize" people suspected of being "disruptive" elements.

http://lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w237.html