What ethical questions does the use of drones in police work raise, and what is the debate behind "#Defund or #Re-Fund"?
Drones: can a "telepresent" officer still apply the use-of-force principles of necessity, proportionality and caution? Defund: should money move from the police to preventive social services, given that the police can neither solve all social problems nor be released from them entirely?
Drones. Police use of force is bound by three principles: necessity (is force needed at all?), proportionality (is it in reasonable relation to the aim?) and caution (are risks to bystanders minimised?). An officer operating a drone remotely is "telepresent": they see the scene only through a camera, which makes it harder to judge a situation and apply these principles.
#Defund or #Re-Fund (USA). After the killing of George Floyd (2020), a movement demanded withdrawing the police from social problems by cutting police budgets and investing in preventive social services instead. The counter-argument: the police cannot be relied on to solve all social problems, but they also cannot, and ideally should not, be released from that responsibility entirely.
Related questions about the police's role:
- Is the police the last institution left to handle crises other institutions cannot manage, so that it gains expertise in the institutional failures behind them?
- Is the police becoming a manager of security and order, a service provider that should deliver policing efficiently (cheaply) and effectively?
- The "uberization of policing": predictive policing as data-driven forecasting about people and places.
Go deeper:
Wikipedia: Unmanned aerial vehicles in law enforcement — police drone uses and privacy concerns.- Wikipedia: Defund the police — the movement, the debate and what happened in US cities.