Protecting Life: The Ethics of Police Deadly Force

The idea that police should prioritize protecting life seems obvious.Many use-of-force policies already endorse the principle.But despite general support for this principle in and out of policing, figuring out what exactly it means in practice proves far more challenging. In Protecting Life, Ben Jones takes up that challenge and provides strategies for navigating it.High-profile, controversial killings in recent years remind us that too often police fall short in their obligations to protect life.The problem goes deeper than a few bad apples. Law, policy, and training entrench practices that result in avoidable killings, which hit marginalized groups the hardest.Importantly, how police use deadly force is intertwined with questions of distributive justice.That insight differentiates Protecting Life in its approach to the ethics of police deadly force.It develops a framework to evaluate police deadly force at the individual and institutional level, with close attention to concerns voice