Ethics and Security

Ethics and security may have an antagonistic relationship with one another. This book argues that they are always interconnected and that they may even mutually reinforce each other.

The contributions in this volume provide a peer-reviewed state of the art analysis of this interrelationship, viewed from a variety of angles. Classical examples of organizations charged with security tasks like the police and the army are among the subjects of research, but also the private security sector is placed under the magnifying glass. While the authors do not eschew to be explicit about moral wrongs, such as corruption, disproportionate use of violence, fabrication of evidence, or discriminate distribution of safety, they also highlight the bright side of the ethics debate in the context like integrity, international cooperation and human rights.

This volume originates from an international meeting of academic and practitioner experts organized in 2009 by the Security Lab of the VU University Amsterdam in cooperation with the Centre for Public Safety and Criminal Justice at Avans University Den Bosch. The lively debates during the meeting were an expression of the relevance of the issue in this era of worldwide political upheaval, the war on terror and omnipresent anxiety.

While relevant for academics as well as practitioners in the field of ethics and security, this book will inspire the debate on the reconciliation between the two fields and the conditions for shaping an ethics-based security culture.