AI cops, robo-detectives and technosolutionism in policing

AI Cops, Robo-detectives and Techno-solutionism: Imagining Ethical Frameworks for Sustainable and Responsible Science and Technology in Policing and Crime Control
It is the ambition of British policing to be the world’s foremost science-led service by embracing techno-solutionism to prevent and detect crime. The extant ethical framework applied to decisions about the development and deployment of science and technology (sci-tech) is focused on legal, utilitarian and deontological considerations. The paper contends that this position is myopic and starts too far ‘forward’ in the ethical decision-making process, ignoring crucial environmental and technology ethics issues concerning, inter alia, the sourcing of raw materials, manufacturing and processing infrastructures, procurement, global impacts on people and places, decommissioning and ‘e-waste’ disposal. Adopting a future-oriented perspective, the possibility of a new ethical framework for sustainable and responsible sci-tech policing and crime control is considered. The paper presents a more holistic ethical framework, drawing together legal, utilitarian, deontological, environmental and technology ethics, within which future decision-making about the development and deployment of police sci-tech can occur.