Policing Aesthetics

Evidently, the cutting edge of New York police architecture is a pile of twelve concrete boxes by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). It is the 40th Precinct Station in the Bronx, now under construction. Does it matter that its slot openings and embrasures pointed toward the neighborhood beyond make it look like a military fortification in a hostile territory?

Policing expert Arthur Rizer has found that police officers using military equipment feel they can get away with more—the equipment makes them look scarier—and that they “don’t care” that this changes how the public feels about them. Not just the tactics and weapons but the aesthetics of policing play a role in their societal estrangement and “looks like” goes a long way toward “acts like.” So, yes.

The NYPD has had an affinity for the militaristic since its inception. While the Metropolitan Police Service of London chose blue uniforms to avoid matching the red of the British Army, when the NYPD was established in 1845 its blue matched American military uniforms of the time. This early aesthetic transgression carried …