ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 : Police, Power, Agency, and Human Rights questions who watches the watchman. The chapter discusses the definition and meaning of power, where power derives, and the great philosophical debate between human agency and determinism. The chapter continues with an in-depth discussion on the meaning and potential for human agency, and, more importantly, the possibilities for applying human agency to human rights policing. The chapter also offers a discussion on threats to the application of human rights looking at moral panics and the manufacturing of folk devils, while providing an example from the British television show Black Mirror. The chapter asks the reader, “What do you see? … How will you, as a police officer treat the individual: as a folk devil, or as a human being deserving of their rights?” In the end, we ask readers to apply what they learn from the chapter to discuss if they believe in the potential for human agency, how they apply their human agency to police work, the importance for human agency to achieve the goals of human rights policing, and how to police those deemed folk devils.
