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41 Crim. Just. Ethics 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/crimjeth41 and id is 1 raw text is: Criminal Justice Ethics, 2022 Vol. 41, No. 1, 1-20, https://doi.org/10.1080/0731129X.2022.2060014 ~)Routledge S Taybrfo r cis Gruup Restraining Police Use of Lethal Force and the Moral Problem of Militarization SHANNON BRANDT FORD* I defend the view that a significant ethical distinction can be made between justified killing in self-defense and police use of lethal force. I start by opposing the belief that police use of lethal force is morally justified on the basis of self-defense. Then I demonstrate that the state's monopoly on the use of force within a given jurisdiction invests police officers with responsibilities that go beyond what morality requires of the average person. I argue that the police should primarily be concerned with preserving public safety. As a consequence, police have additional moral permissions to use lethal force. But this also means that the principle of restraint is inherent to the policing function and therefore police are obliged to go to greater lengths to avoid killing. I concede that the just use of police force can be made difficult in extreme situations such as a mass riot. In such cases, police should take proportionate actions necessary to protect the lives of inhabitants by restoring order, which might include calling on military support. I conclude with a cautionary note opposing militarization of the policing role. Keywords: police, militarization, self-defense, lethal force Introduction Police use of lethal force is a conten- tious topic. Police shootings in the US, for example, have been one of the touchstone issues contributing to the widening political divide there. One might believe that one way to reduce police shootings is to strictly apply a self-defense paradigm. This paradigm says that police officers *Shannon Brandt Ford is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin Univer- sity, Perth, Australia. Email: shannon. ford@curtin.edu.au should only use lethal force when it is necessary to fend off an unjust immediate deadly threat to them- selves or to the lives of other innocent parties. For example, the police are permitted to shoot an attacker who lunges at them or an innocent person with a knife, but they shouldn't shoot an unarmed suspect fleeing the scene of a crime. This per- spective can overlook the police duty to proactively protect the public from dangerous criminals, however. The unarmed suspect fleeing the scene of a crime might be someone who © 2022 John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York