Policing, law enforcement, or security services provided by government is immoral

Some say the most important attributes of job in law enforcement are the person's integrity and moral behavior. In order to be a law enforcement officer, individuals must demonstrate a life lived morally within certain criteria. However, what about the profession as a whole as it relates to government administration of law enforcement. There are several issues with regard to the morality of law enforcement. 1) Government in and of itself is not moral. Government functions based upon the initiation of force against those subject to it. Government is a monopoly on force within a specified geographical area for purposes of social control or order. The primary easy example of this is how governments fund themselves via taxation. If you don't pay taxes you will presented with increasing levels of threats and force up to and including death in the extreme if you physically resist you arrest for 'tax evasion'. It is a generally accepted moral principle that hitting others and taking their stuff is wrong. Just because a large group called government want to doesn't suddenly make those actions moral. Some would argue in favor of social contract theory, however social contracts are not a valid form of contract. In practice the social contract assumes that some people can enter into a contract and force others to comply. Social contract theorists call this the "general will". It is the same as me buying a house and making you pay for it. 2) Many laws made by governments are immoral, wicked, or unjust. Law enforcement officials have some limited discretion in some enforcement situations but by taking on the profession they agree to enforce all the laws of the state. Laws that have no victims(speeding, drug possession, prostitution and so forth) amount to edicts limiting human liberty and enforcement of such amounts to immoral initiation of force as I have previously described. 3) Law enforcement culture fosters immoral behavior Punch (2009) describes the journey of some police officers as they travel from being moral civilians to immoral police officers. This often occurs because indoctrination into the police culture can negatively affect police recruits" ethical behavior and have disastrous consequences (Souryal, 2011). Punch (2009) states that the result is the slippery slope during which immoral decisions start as minor breaches of organizational or occupational rules and evolve into major corruption. We see this come to fruition with shootings of unarmed people by police, the targeting of people of color and minorities, and general ability of police officers to get away with minor crimes and violations by having the "brothers in blue" cover things up for them. It also manifests in the way police handle certain situations with excessive force as often the militaristic indoctrination into police culture hypes up violent attitudes among the police. 4) Subjecting all protection services to market forces of capitalism could produce better outcomes When protection and security is subjected to market forces of measured outcomes and economic resource and customer movement we see better outcomes. By better outcomes I mean few deaths, improper use of force incidents, and better metrics that measure the prevention of victimization. One such example of this in action is the private company of the 'Threat Management Center' in Detroit, Michigan. They have not had one agent or protected client killed and none of their agents have been involved in crime or moral turpitude action. The use profitability from protecting corporate clients to teach free self-defense classes and protect whole neighborhood in Detroit where government police response is lacking. We see this type of positive result over and over again in the private security and protection industry where government police fails at their primary directive to protect property and life. Some may argue that government based police provide some good and lifesaving services. I would agree with that statement. However, that does not mean that government and its inherent aggression is the only way to provide such protection. We need to seek out ethical alternatives to what we currently have. Sources: Punch, M. (2009). Police Corruption: Deviance Accountability and Reform in Policing. Portland, Oregon: Willan Publishing. Souryal, S. (2011). Ethics in Criminal Justice: In Search of the Truth (5th Edition). Burlington, Maine: Elsevier. http://www.huffingtonpost.com... www.threatmanagementcenter.com/