Police in Springfield, Mass. adopt Iraq-style ‘counterinsurgency’ tactics [View all]

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/05/police-in-springfield-mass-adopt-iraq-style-counterinsurgency-tactics/



Police in Springfield, Massachusetts have adopted Iraq-style “counterinsurgency” tactics and are applying them to gang busting with amazing results, according to Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes.”

Before you get freaked out, don’t worry: Springfield police are not walling off whole blocks, setting up militarized checkpoints and jumping out of helicopters with bazookas. What they are doing is something that’s been sorely missing from American policing in recent decades: community building.

Retired Marine Corps officer R. Scott Moore summarized counterinsurgency strategy as the combination of “actions, structures and beliefs to resolve root causes” of a conflict. As such, U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq focused on keeping militants at bay while creating stable space for a community to come together and begin resolving issues that create violence.

To officer Mike Katone, freshly home from a war zone and working for the Springfield police force, that strategy made more and more sense the longer he looked at his city’s gang problems.