The Challenge of Policing Minorities in a Liberal Society is a new article by Joseph Heath in the Journal of Political Philosophy.
Overview: The article proceeds as follows. I begin by distinguishing two very different normative models of policing, which follow from different views about the basis of police authority. The first view, which I refer to as the legalist model of policing, rests on the claim that police power should be limited to law enforcement, narrowly construed (which is to say, preventing crimes in progress and apprehending those who have broken the law). In contrast to this, I will describe what I refer to as the communitarian model of policing, which regards the organized enforcement of statutory law as deeply intertwined with enforcement of the informal social order. The authority of the police, on this view, extends beyond the enforcement of law to include a wide range of interventions aimed at complementing the efforts of communities to maintain order.