The United States is known for its high rates of incarceration and the presence of heavily-armed police forces. Police departments across the country utilize drones borrowed from the U.S. Border Patrol to monitor civilians. Various task forces and fusion centers facilitate collaboration among law enforcement personnel at different levels of government. Despite past controversies like COINTELPRO, the FBI continues to surveil dissenting voices. While the U.S. claims to uphold liberal ideals of individual rights and equality, it has also established a robust security apparatus.
How did we reach this point? While many attribute the expansion of federal law enforcement powers to Presidents such as Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, historian Anthony Gregory explores how Franklin Delano Roosevelt laid the groundwork for the modern security state in his latest book, New Deal Law and Order: How the War on Crime Built the Modern Liberal State. Gregory reveals how the principles of liberalism were employed to construct a system of repression.
Gregory delves into the historical context of struggles against both actual and perceived lawlessness from the Civil War to the onset of the Great Depression. This period witnessed various forms of lawlessness, including racial violence in the South, labor disputes, organized crime, Prohibition-related criminal activities, and human trafficking. By characterizing these issues as matters of “lawlessness” rather than localized crimes, the federal government justified its intervention. However, previous attempts to establish a national framework for maintaining law and order failed until Roosevelt established a lasting federal system of crime control, which also served as a tool for repression.
Through a strategy termed “war-on-crime federalism,” Roosevelt and his associates incentivized state and local governments to expand their policing and incarceration efforts in alignment with federal objectives. This collaborative effort among different levels of government enabled the consolidation of power. Roosevelt navigated a delicate balancing act by forming alliances with disparate ideological groups, providing support to white supremacist Southern Democrats while also engaging with civil rights advocates in an attempt to curb lynchings. While the administration did not take significant action against lynching, it made gestures to retain anti-racist support.
Roosevelt’s inclusive approach extended to retaining and empowering officials from previous administrations, allowing individuals like Harry Anslinger, who headed the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Roosevelt, to expand their influence.
Roosevelt’s Republican predecessor, who held onto his position, capitalized on Roosevelt’s crime-fighting efforts to establish the foundation for the modern war on drugs. Similarly, J. Edgar Hoover, who had served the Bureau of Investigation under several GOP presidents, was retained despite opposition from Roosevelt’s inner circle, ultimately playing a key role in shaping the new war on crime. This enabled Hoover to bolster his agency’s authority and eventually transform it into the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hoover’s agents took on various responsibilities during Roosevelt’s presidency, including monitoring the activities of the president’s political adversaries. The war on crime also influenced Roosevelt’s redefinition of liberalism, allowing for a broader scope of coercive state intervention. Despite objections from some libertarians and classical liberals, this book argues convincingly that liberal principles and language were instrumental in legitimizing the president’s anti-crime efforts and maintaining the coalition that supported them, much like they did for his broader New Deal reforms. Even critics of Roosevelt’s consolidation of power, such as Roger Baldwin of the American Civil Liberties Union, eventually commended his administration. Baldwin, who initially raised concerns about the administration’s infringements on civil liberties, later acknowledged Roosevelt’s wartime measures as preserving freedoms during a time of national mobilization. Although he condemned the unjust internment of Japanese Americans, he viewed it as a stain on an otherwise rational and tolerant record. Baldwin refrained from publicizing a report on Hoover’s use of the FBI for suppressing dissent, deeming Hoover a lesser evil compared to the conservative Martin Dies Jr., who chaired the House Un-American Activities Committee. Baldwin characterized civil rights violations by the new security apparatus as isolated incidents tarnishing an otherwise law-abiding record. Gregory’s book sheds light on how appeals to liberal values can justify harsh coercion and repression, highlighting how states utilize ideas and rhetoric to enlist support for their actions. In Roosevelt’s case, these actions included gun regulations, the war on drugs, enhanced collaboration among law enforcement agencies, prison expansion, and closer ties between domestic police forces and national security agencies. The New Deal’s anti-crime initiatives laid the groundwork for a coercive system that Roosevelt utilized during World War II to maintain order and discipline, resulting in regrettable civil rights violations like the internment of Japanese Americans. “New Deal Law and Order” also demonstrates how different forms of state power are interconnected, showing that efforts to expand social welfare and public services were closely linked to the anti-crime campaigns of the New Deal era. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority not only provided public services and promoted rural electrification but also contributed to modernizing agric
The American South required security officers to protect its facilities. Crime-fighting strategies often focused on both repression and prevention, with prevention proposals linked to public services. The expansion of the welfare state further bolstered the security state. Simultaneously, as the security state expanded for domestic law enforcement purposes, it consciously drew lessons from prior foreign conflicts—and subsequently established connections between policing and national security during World War II.
Over time, these connections have led to the militarization of law enforcement at all levels of government. When a local police department conducts a SWAT raid, seizes property using civil asset forfeiture, or employs a drone to monitor a protest, it frequently utilizes tools provided by Washington. We continue to navigate a realm of “war-on-crime federalism,” and Gregory’s contributions are essential for comprehending the evolution of current circumstances.
Nathan P. Goodman is a senior fellow in the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. His research centers on public choice, institutions, self-governance, defense and peace economics, and border militarization.
