Militarized policing in the hinterlands: A Blackwater training ground and the cultural conceptions of security

Abstract Research in recent decades shows that private military and security contractors have reshaped the tenor and reach of US military power abroad while also accelerating the militarization of domestic policing. Previous work on militarized policing has primarily centered on urban environments. This article examines Blackwater North, a facility in a rural Illinois community, which provided privatized, militarized police training from 2007 through 2010. Drawing from newspaper accounts, government records, and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the community after the facility's closure, I analyze residents’ recollections of the local support of and opposition to Blackwater North. I argue that local supporters promoted a culture of perpetual preparedness that positioned militarized policing as a rational form of harm reduction, as well as one that could yield economic benefits to struggling host communities. I also examine the opposition and analyze the insider/outsider divides that emerged within the debate surrounding Blackwater North. At stake for both supporters and opponents were differing cultural conceptions of what increases, and what erodes, security. This case study focuses on rural spaces’ role in the landscape of militarized policing and illuminates the cultural processes by which privatized military power and militarized policing become accepted and resisted at the community level.