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Ethical Considerations on Police Use of Force

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Abstract

The paper explorers the deontological and utilitarianism theories which help police officers and other members of the criminal justice system make the right decisions in their law enforcement duties. Several scholarly articles have been reviewed which contain information on ethical theories and the concepts of police use of force. As per Chaney and Robertson (2014), justice is needed when enforcing laws and the case of the brutal beating of King Rodney by white police officers in Los Angeles was acts of injustice which must be punished. The US criminal justice leadership recommend in-service training for police officers where they are taught deontological ethics and utilitarianism theory. Utilitarianism is a theory that enlightens individuals in a society to focus on actions that maximize utility. The utility is an ethical term that describes the well-being of people. Also, the deontological theory is relevant to police officers and require people to understand the morality of an action to ensure they do the right actions to avoid negative consequences. When the concepts of utilitarianism and deontological theories are taught to violent police officers, they will understand the need for justice when enforcing laws. Research by Chaney and Robertson among other articles will be analyzed.

Keywords: police use of force, utilitarianism, deontological theory.

Ethical Considerations on Police Use of Force

Numerous studies explain the issue of police use of force and the need to reform the US criminal justice system. The brutality of police officers has been witnessed in many US regions whereby Black Americans are mostly mistreated by violent corps. On 3rd March 1991, the issue of police brutality was widely discussed on social media platforms when Rodney Glen King endured a brutal beating by white corps from Los Angeles Police Department. King Rodney was harassed because of his racial background, and such act changed the perception of many Americans concerning police use of force (Chaney and Robertson, 2014). As an attempt to reform activities of brutal police officers, the leadership of the US criminal justice system organized for the critical training of police officers. Additional training of US corps incorporated the concepts of ethical theories that empower police officers and make them competent law enforcers. Utilitarianism and Deontological theories are appropriate to address challenges resulting from police use of force. Both utilitarianism and deontological theories are applied in law enforcement strategies to enlighten police officers on ethical reasoning and need for justice to ensure disenfranchised African American groups are not discriminated. Ethical theories provide solutions to police officers like how to conduct an effective investigation of potential terrorists without harming minorities.

Utilitarianism as an ethical theory in law enforcement

Weinrib (2010) explained utilitarianism as the theory concerned with the consequences of law enforcers and required individuals to evaluate the morality of the choices they make. Jeremy Bentham founded the utilitarianism theory and was concerned with the well-being of individuals in a society. Utilitarianism theory encourages people to use their moral reasoning to help them do right deeds which result in positive consequences. Weinrib in his description of utilitarianism targeted the acts of law enforcers especially police officers. The Law enforcement officers should ensure their ethical decisions consider results. For instance, police officers should not engage in careless shooting after criminal suspects disagree with their simple commands. The utilitarianism concepts require law enforcers to understand principles of utility which require human actions to maximize pleasure and minimize pain (Weinrib, 2010). Immoral acts of police officers make them spread institutionalized discrimination which threatens minorities and undermine their well-being in society. If members of the public are threatened by violent police officers, they cannot maximize pleasure.

Research by Donnermeyer (2002) on local preparedness for terrorism reveals that police officers should be exposed to critical training needs to ensure they easily detect terrorist suspects. Other than physical training, enlightenment on utilitarianism concepts will help reform homeland security policing. The literature on policing should discuss the utility principles that were proposed by utilitarian theory. The first principle discusses that happiness and pleasure result from the mind and ethical reasoning will help police officers stop threatening minorities for them to enjoy the well-being of the mind. More so, pleasure does not last for long, and it is unfair for corps to interfere with minorities as they enjoy their rights. Law enforcement executives require local preparedness for them to effectively fight terrorism and conceptualization of utilitarianism ideas is important to law enforcers (Donnermeyer, 2002). As per utilitarianism, consequences for actions discuss the standards of wrong and right deeds. Therefore, police officers who maximize utility and make the right choices when conducting investigations can easily identify potential criminals who may cause terrorism attacks.

Utilitarianism views good actions as consequences of making the right choices. Utilitarian concepts relate with ideas discussed by Faure and Weber (2017), on the diversity of the European Union's law enforcement strategies. European union require its member states to respect current law enforcement approaches to ensure police officers do not mistreat innocent members of the public (Faure & Weber, (2017). Therefore, both European Union and utilitarianism emphasize on right ethical decisions from all law enforcers. Ethical reasoning help police officers effectively use law enforcement tools and avoid unjustified shooting which may result in fines from the US criminal justice leaders.

In addition, the explanation of race and police brutality by Fridkin, Wintersieck, Courey and Thompson (2017) reveals how an African Professor working in America was confronted by a violent police officer and body slammed. The violent police officer was inexperienced and lacked the knowledge of utility principles that guide people on right decision making. If the brutal police officer had learned utilitarianism theory, he could not spread racism in law enforcement. Mistreating a Black American by white corps is an act of institutionalized discrimination and is spread by individuals who do not maximize utility when making choices in life. African American citizens organized demonstrations around their residential streets in the US to discourage the act of the white police who mistreated an African American professor (Fridkin, Wintersieck, Courey & Thompson, 2017). Utilitarianism requires individuals to satisfy their preferences in the right way without causing harm to innocent people. Violent police discriminate US citizens from the African race, but their racist ideology should not be spread when enforcing laws. Law enforcers should be fair always and maintain the highest moral good. Utilitarianism gives a solution to problems affecting police officers in their line of duty.

The Deontology theory and its application in law enforcement

Deontology is an ethical theory founded by Immanuel Kant to explain the concerns of individual’s duty. Individuals should struggle to accomplish their duties regardless of the outcomes. However, well-performed duties result in better outcomes. The notion of duty as explained in deontology theory can be applied in law enforcement to ensure every police officer in the US is bound by law to meet the requirements of allocated duties (McNaughton & Rawling, 2015). Law enforcement duties must be executed regardless of physical and emotional challenges associated with them. However, law enforcers should avoid actions that may result in negative consequences. Conditional and categorical imperative are the types of duties elaborated in deontology theory that should be met by police officers who engage in law enforcement. All duties help fulfil particular goals, and law enforcement duties allocated to US corps ensure justice prevails in all American regions. Therefore, violent police officers who undermine justice in society are against law enforcement goals.

Deontological ethics require a moral obligation to guide police officers in enforcing laws effectively without discriminating any racial group. Personal desires of conducting assigned should not be affected by external factors like peer influence or racism ideology. Police officers in the US should be guided by deontological ethics to identify the violent and non-violent actors in incidences of violent extremism (Knight, Woodward & Lancaster, 2017). Criminal groups organize violent extremism, and law enforcement agencies should guide their officers to ensure they effectively investigate and arrest terrorist suspects. Concepts of the deontological theory are relevant to police officers to guide them on the ethical notion of duty and how to make the right ethical decisions to ensure they succeed in fighting crime.

According to Sweet, Meissner and Atkinson (2017), police officers should undergo critical training where they are taught deontological ethics concerning the value of duty. Duty well-performed by police officers will help detect weapons which are illegally concealed by criminal suspects. Ethical naturalism will motivate police officers to identify their duty to be control of crime but not to harm criminal suspects who disagree with corps. Violent police officers will be reformed after understanding the demands of deontological theory. US corps who coerce terrorist suspects negatively affect the investigation process since members of the public view violent corps as a bully and cannot interact well with such officers to give information concerning criminal acts.

In moral dilemmas like where police officers are disturbed by criminal suspects and may shoot to kill, the deontological theory will help such officers make the right decisions. Deontological ethics require all law enforcers to evaluate ramifications of their deeds to ensure emotions do not force them to make wrong actions. Therefore, disturbing criminal suspects should be prosecuted but not threatened by the use of guns. Police who threaten and shoot without justification from their leaders make mistakes and are punished by criminal justice leaders (Hufnagel, Gani, & Bronitt, 2012). Shooting to kill by police officers when conducting investigations is discouraged by European Union's law enforcement approaches, and such acts should not be witnessed in the United States.

Law enforcement officers should understand the importance of duty and when swearing their oath should confess their loyalty in maintaining people’s safety. Duty-related deaths mostly affect US corps who ignore the importance of duty and engage in deviance behavior like excessive use of substance abuse (Kasper, 2012). Deviance behaviors of some police officers can be changed if they undergo critical training and learn concepts of deontology theory on the essence of duty and the need to evaluate the moral implications of every actions to avoid negative consequences. Law enforcers should maintain respect while on duty and avoid shooting in public to threaten people. A deeper understanding of deontological ethics will help US corps choose the right options when faced with dilemmas in their investigation duty.

Future Study

To gain more knowledge on ethical theories like utilitarianism and deontological ethics and how they can be applied to resolve the issue of police use of force, there is a need to review several scholarly articles. Articles written within the last five years contain credible information on how police officers mistreat minorities in the US and the need to teach law enforcers on ethical theories that require people to prioritize the right choices to ensure their actions result in positive consequences. More so, online diaries are relevant and contain information on utilitarianism and deontological theories. Diaries also keep records of violent law enforcers who mistreat criminal suspects because they lack knowledge of ethical theories that enlighten on ethical reasoning for effective decision making. Online chat groups are relevant for future studies and help describe the principles of ethical theories.

Conclusion

In conclusion, many scholars discuss the problems related to police use of force and give suggestions on how such acts can be diminished. In the US, violent police officers mostly mistreat African Americans to spread the racism ideology. The increasing acts of institutionalized discrimination spread by white police have resulted in peaceful demonstrations from Black Americans advocating for the fairness of all members of the criminal justice system. As an effort to undermine police use of power, in-service training has been supported in all US police headquarters where they are taught utilitarianism and deontological theories that improve ethical reasoning of law enforcers to minimize police brutality cases. Both utilitarianism and deontological theories help US police officers make the right choices when dealing with criminal suspects. For a further understanding of police use of force, future studies should be made in online journal articles, and reviewed diaries which contain credible information on police brutality and how studying ethical theories help transform decisions of law enforcement officers.

References

CHANEY, C., & ROBERTSON, R. V. (2014). "Can We All Get Along?" Blacks' Historical and Contemporary (In) Justice With Law Enforcement. Western Journal Of Black Studies, 38(2), 108-122.

Donnermeyer, J. F. (2002). Local Preparedness for Terrorism: A View from Law Enforcement. Police Practice & Research, 3(4), 347-360. doi:10.1080/1561426022000032105

Faure, M., & Weber, F. (2017). The Diversity of the EU Approach to Law Enforcement--Towards a Coherent Model Inspired by a Law and Economics Approach. German Law Journal, 18(4), 823

Fridkin, K., Wintersieck, A., Courey, J., & Thompson, J. (2017). Race and Police Brutality: The Importance of Media Framing. International Journal Of Communication (Online), 3394.

Hufnagel, S., Gani, M., & Bronitt, S. (2012). Shooting to Kill: Socio-Legal Perspectives on the Use of Lethal Force. Oxford, United Kingdom: Hart Publishing.

Kasper, J. (2012). How Cops Die: Understanding and Preventing Duty-related Deaths. Springfield: Charles C Thomas.

Knight, S., Woodward, K., & Lancaster, G. J. (2017). Violent versus nonviolent actors: An empirical study of different types of extremism. Journal Of Threat Assessment And Management, 4(4), 230-248. doi:10.1037/tam0000086

McNaughton, D., & Rawling, P. (2015). Deontology. The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, 424-458. doi:10.1093/0195147790.003.0016

Sweet, D. M., Meissner, C. A., & Atkinson, D. J. (2017). Assessing law enforcement performance in behaviour-based threat detection tasks involving a concealed weapon or device. Law And Human Behavior, 41(5), 411-421. doi:10.1037/lhb0000243.

Weinrib, E. J. (2010). Utilitarianism, Economics, and Legal Theory. The University of Toronto Law Journal, 30(3), 307. doi:10.2307/825489