International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee215.pub2 1 Police Ethics Seumas Miller The term “police ethics” typically refers to an area of academic inquiry within philosophical ethics concerned with ethical issues that arise for police officers and police organizations (Heffernan and Stroup 1985; Delattre 1994; Kleinig 1996a; Miller and Blackler 2005). Let me describe some of the main ethical or moral (I use these terms interchangeably here, to avoid unnecessary complication) issues that arise in policing. As with other socially important institutions and occupations (see professional ethics), the role of police officers and police organizations raises various founda- tional normative questions pertaining to their nature and to the moral purposes they serve or ought to serve. In response to these questions, a number of normative theories of policing have been developed, notably a social contract theory (see social contract; Cohen and Feldberg 1991; Kleinig 1996a) and a teleological rights‐based theory (see rights; Miller and Blackler 2005: Ch. 1; Miller and Gordon 2014: Ch. 1). Moreover, there are various descriptive theories of policing proffered by theoretical criminologists, for example that of Egon Bittner, who defines policing in terms of the use of coercive force (see coercion; also Bittner 1980). The social contract theory will be familiar to students of political philosophy, since it is a version of that propounded by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and the like. Roughly speaking, persons in a highly insecure state of nature make an agreement or contract to provide themselves with security by giving up at least some of the rights that they enjoy in the state of nature to a government with a monopoly on the use of force (the police service). On the teleological rights‐based theory of policing, the protection of moral rights is the central and most important moral purpose of police work, albeit an end whose pursuit ought to be constrained by the law (see criminal justice ethics; also Miller and Blackler 2005: Ch. 1; Miller and Gordon 2014: Ch. 1). So, while police institutions have other important purposes that might not directly involve the protection of moral rights – such as to enforce traffic laws, to enforce the adjudications of courts in relation to disputes between citizens, or indeed themselves to settle disputes between citizens on the streets or to ensure good order more generally – these turn out to be purposes derived from the more fundamental purpose of protecting moral rights; in other words they turn out to be secondary purposes. Thus laws against speeding derive in part from the moral right to life, and the restoring of order at a football match ultimately derives in large part from moral rights to the protection of persons and of property.