To Deploy, or Not to Deploy: An Examination of the Correlates of Support for the Use of SWAT Teams

While they were originally meant to be reserved for the most dangerous of situations, such as those involving heavily armed and barricaded suspects, the role of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams has expanded over time to include a wider variety of situations, including drug raids, routine patrol, and monitoring protests. This expanded use is believed to have the potential of worsening police-community relations and increasing the likelihood that citizens’ civil rights will be violated. Using a national sample of 1,216 American adults that completed an online opt-in survey, the current study examines support for the deployment of SWAT teams in seven different situations: hostage situations, terrorism events, arrested armed and dangerous offenders, civil unrest, serving drug warrants, large-scale public events, and peaceful protests and tests whether perceptions of police-military equivalency, symbolic racism, and conservative crime ideology are significant correlates of support. The findings indicate that Americans are more supportive of using SWAT teams for more dangerous situations in which they were traditionally meant to be used than they are of using them for routine policing. However, the significance and direction of the relationship between the main tested correlates and support for deployment were inconsistent. Implications for policy and directions for future research are also discussed.