ABSTRACT
What we see to be the roles or ends of policing will have an important bearing on the means that are appropriate to their fulfillment. The broadly construed role of social peacekeeping for which I argue in Chapter 2 includes law enforcement and public safety, and to fulfill their tasks police are given the moral authority to use coercive force, engage in deceptive tactics, infringe on privacy, and exercise discretionary authority that we would have been justified in employing in a state of nature—but now cede to them as part of the social contract (policing by consent). Their authority to use these means is morally bounded, constrained by purposes to which we could reasonably be expected to give our consent.
