Applying the Imminence Requirement to Police

In many jurisdictions in the United States and elsewhere, the law governing deadly force by police and civilians contains a notable asymmetry. Often civilians but not police are bound by the imminence requirement—that is, a necessary condition for justifying deadly force is reasonable belief that oneself or another innocent person faces imminent threat of grave harm. In US law enforcement, however, there has been some shift toward the imminence requirement, most evident in the use-of-force policy adopted by the Department of Justice in 2022. This article defends that shift and argues that the ethical case for the imminence requirement in policing is stronger than Shannon Brandt Ford suggests in a recent article. Though the imminence requirement’s impacts on policing and public safety require ongoing study, the principle of equality before the law and the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing both provide moral grounds for this requirement, especially given the lack of evidence that the status quo helps protect life.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Criminal Justice Ethics on 2023-01-02, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0731129X.2023.2187188.

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Work Title Applying the Imminence Requirement to Police
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Ben Jones
Keyword
  1. Criminal law
  2. Deadly force
  3. Imminence
  4. Law enforcement
  5. Police
  6. Tennessee v. Garner
License CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Criminal Justice Ethics
Publication Date March 8, 2023
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1080/0731129X.2023.2187188
Deposited December 01, 2023

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Version 1
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  • Created
  • Added PoliceImminencePaperPosted-1.pdf
  • Added Creator Ben Jones
  • Published
  • Updated Keyword Show Changes
    Keyword
    • Criminal law, Deadly force, Imminence, Law enforcement, Police, Tennessee v. Garner
  • Updated