Identification

• Ethical standards set guidelines for the use of force in any profession that requires the option to control the actions of an individual, according to "Criminal Justice Ethics" by Cyndi Banks. Most ethics codes covering the use of force do not consist of strict rules, but merely a general code of behavior.
  
  

Types

• The use of force can occur in every sector of life, such as the use of force in parenting, but the most studied use of force and ethics involve the police and military. Police have domestic authority, which in the United States is separate from military authority. Different levels of force exist, from establishing a physical presence to using deadly force, according to Austin Peay State University.
  
  

Benefits

• Creating a code of ethics governing those who exercise the use force alleviates concerns the public might have about those in the policing professions, according to Banks. Even if just as rhetoric, the public wishes to know that they have some rights against certain tactics used by the police. Quite often, a code of ethics eventually makes its way into written legal documents.
  
  

Common Ethics

• Domestic police and the military often have overlapping ethical standards. For example, both are required to use only the amount of force that's absolutely necessary, including no force at all. Most nations agree, at least in principle, to United Nations Charter, Chapter 1, Article 2, Principles 4 and 5, which state that nations should resist using armed conflict against other states, according to Australia's Air War College. In domestic policing, ethics usually call for avoidance of "excessive force," according to APSU.
  
  

Significance

• Police are usually the only authority empowered by the state to carry out the use of force on citizens, and often the line between necessary and excessive force becomes blurred, according to Banks. In the United States alone, police use some type of force in over 2 million instances each year. About 3,600 events each year require police to use a firearm, resulting in an average of 600 deaths, according to APSU.