Police Response to Uncivil Anti-Police Protests
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Recent literature in political philosophy has argued that protesting against police brutality can permissibly involve uncivil conduct, including damage to property and confrontation with police officers. If this view is correct, how should the police respond to uncivil protestors? This paper challenges the prevailing view amongst criminologists and political philosophers alike, according to which the police should respond forcefully to violent protestors, in order restore order and peace. Instead, I argue that police should adopt a discerning approach, and permit permissible forms of incivility, while minimize impermissible harm. This argument is grounded in protestors’ moral rights to engage in uncivil conduct in response to systemic injustices, and in the duties of police officers to assist them in carrying out their protest in permissible ways.
Source: Political Philosophy
DOI: 10.16995/pp.24071
Author: Avia Pasternak
Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4414784635