The Police and the State : Security, Social Cooperation, and the Public Good

"As we wrestle with the role and limits of policing, a political philosopher who spent over two decades as a New York City police officer and Vermont chief of police presents a normative account of what it means to police a pluralist democracy. Invoking his vast experience, Brandon del Pozo argues that we all have the prerogative to use force to protect others, but police embody the government's unique duty to do so effectively and with restraint. He recasts order maintenance as brokering and enforcing the fair terms of social cooperation in our public spaces, for the protection of minority interests, and for a society where diverse conceptions of the good can flourish. The reasons why we police, he says, must be ones that all citizens can evaluate as equals. His book explains the democratic commitments of policing, and lays the groundwork for meaningful police innovation and reform"-- Provided by publisher Copyright Contents Introduction: Toward a Theory of the Police 1 The Role of the Police Shortcomings of “Law Enforcement” and “Investigatory” Conceptions Gaps in the “Moral Rights” and “Social Peacekeeping” Conceptions Backing into the Police Role by Examining Police Practices Properly Politicizing the Language of Police Practice Reconciling the Ideal Role of the Police With Policing’s Unjust Practices The Police Role and Its Implications for Coercion 2 The First Power of the Police: Impartial Protection and Rescue Minimalist States as Exemplars of the State’s Duty to Protect and Rescue Locke, Nozick, and Weber: From Nature to the State, from Prerogative to Duty The Duty to Protect as Deontological, Rather than Contractual or Utilitarian Active Shooters, Terrorism, and the Conflation of Police and Military Duties The Duty to Retreat Further Distinguishes Citizens from the Police Undoing the Citizen Duty to Retreat as a Devolution to the State of Nature Police Professionalism as the Means by Which to Resolve the Tensions of the State Protection and Rescue as the First Civil Right 3 The Second Power of the Police: Arrest for Adjudication The Police as the Court’s Extension into the World The Role of the Court The Shifting Ends of Exercising the Second Power The Police as Epistemologists with Uncertain Ends The Second Power of the Police as an Imprimatur to Stay 4 The Third Power of the Police: Brokering and Enforcing Social Cooperation Cooperation and Public Spaces A Taxonomy of Cooperative Public Endeavors The Taxonomy’s Implications for Contractualist Objections The Law as a Guide and a Framework for Social Cooperation A Pillow Fight as a Practical Example of the Value of Underdetermined Laws Brokerage versus Enforcement, and Honoring Democratic Pluralism Concerns of Class, Race, Access to Public Space, and Social Cooperation The Hazards of Informal Social Control as an Alternative to Policing Three Values Guiding Police Brokerage and Enforcement of Social Cooperation Fair Access to Public Spaces as a Social Condition of Freedom The Third Power as an Acknowledgment of a Hegelian Conception of the Police Abolitionist Theory, or How to Back into Policing without Really Trying 5 Democratic Priorities, Relationships, and Tensions: Seven Cases of Policing Not Arresting Black Lives Matter Protesters Who Block Traffic during Rush Hour Reducing the Car Stops a Police Department Makes as a Way to Decrease the Negative Consequences of This Typeof Enforcement for a Community Sanctuary City Policies That Explicitly Limit Police Department Cooperation with Federal Immigration Enforcement Officials A Decision Not to Voucher Condoms as Evidence When Making Prostitution Arrests Not Arresting Suspects for Prostitution When There Is Cause to Believe the Suspects Are Being Trafficked into Doing So Not Arresting Individuals in Possession of Personal-Use Quantities of Unprescribed Addiction Treatment Medication Advocating for the Redesign of Smartphones to Deter Theft 6 The Bases of, and Reasons for Seeking, Police Legitimacy Legitimacy: Normative, Descriptive, Political, and Popular The Emotional and Democratic Bases of Descriptive Legitimacy Normative Legitimacy as the Natural Ground of Policing Legitimacy and the Independent Requirements of Natural Rights and Moral Duties Legitimacy, and the Government as Complainant on Behalf of the People Coakley’s Critique: Legitimacy Only Matters When You Have a Good Reason to Disobey Descriptive Legitimacy in Tension with the Need for Civil Disobedience and a Duty to Resist Descriptive Legitimacy as a Moot Point: Errors in Ontology and International Experiments Distinguishing a Willingness to Obey the Law from the Authority to Enforce It The Value of Legitimacy in Times of Uncertainty The Value of Legitimacy in Securing Cooperation Legitimacy and Support for the Overall Project of Policing Popular Legitimacy Depends on Substantive Justice Returning to the Need for a Political Philosophy of Policing 7 Procedural Justice in Policing Revisited Clarity about the Goals of Procedural Justice in Policing The Four Precepts of Tylerian Justice Procedural Justice in the Courtroom in Tension with the Tylerian Conception Tylerian Justice’s Tension with Advice to Remain Silent The Law’s Recognition of the Limits of Procedure in Matters of Public Safety Procedural Justice as Qualitatively Indistinguishable from Charismatic Appeal Sometimes, Tylerian Justice Does Not Affirm a Person’s Dignity Procedural Justice and Other Languages of Policing: An Incommensurability Problem Tylerian Travails into the Realm of Normative Legitimacy Returning to the Pursuit of Legitimacy through Substantive Justice Conclusion: Policing as Substantive Justice that Yields Normative Legitimacy 8 Policing with Public Reason The Inherent Roots of Public Reason in Policing The Idea of Public Reason as a Justificatory Method Justification through Truth or Consent, and the Alternative of Public Reason Returning to the Suitability of Public Reason in Police Transactions Civility as a Moral Duty of Public Reason Civility as a Cudgel to Suppress Dissent and Prolong Oppression Public Reason as the Best Natural Grounds for Policing, amidst Various Objections Cultivating Legitimacy by Providing the Right Reasons Public Spaces, Public Reasons, and the Limits of Statute The Limits of Public Reason Conflicts between Public Reason and Democratic Process Backing Away from Procedure and into Public Reason 9 Policing Populism, Protecting Pluralism Special Interests Majoritarianism Democratic Policing and the Threat of Populism Conclusion: Discretion and the Ultraminimal State 10 Primary Goods, Policing States in Transition, and Natural Experiments Protection, Rescue, and Primary Goods States in Transition as Natural Experiments in the Delivery of Protection and Rescue Criminal Justice as Secondary to Protection, Rescue, and Brokering Cooperation Health Care, Medicine, and Policing as Intuitively Comparable Goods Rescue, Treatment, and Policing as Conceptually Intertwined Primary Goods in the Minarchist State Policing the Least Well-off: A Reconsideration of the Difference Principle Policing as a Positive Intervention with Iatrogenic Effects Building a Police Capacity for Public Reason Conclusion: Policing, Public Health, and Justice References Index As the United States faces a crisis in policing amidst rising levels of violence, a political philosopher with over two decades of experience working as a New York City police officer and Vermont chief of police sets out a much-needed account of what policing means for our turbulent democracy.