Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Boston University Law Review

Abstract

For hundreds of years, political leaders and thinkers have deemed public safety the first duty of government. But they have defined public safety rather narrowly, primarily in terms of the “protection” function—protecting individuals from violent harm to person or property from third parties (and also from natural elements). As the first duty, the protection function is privileged. Witness today how we valorize police and other first responders, defer to their decisions without close scrutiny, and immunize them from liability for their mistakes. Yet, is protection really all there is to public safety? For most people, being safe depends on much more: food, clean water and air, housing, a basic income, and the means to obtain that income through an education and a job. It might include health care, health insurance, and freedom from discrimination. This Article argues that if individual safety includes some or all of these additional elements, then public safety—the government’s obligation to ensure people are safe—should be understood far more capaciously than it is at present. At its analytic core, this Article shows that there is nothing particularly different about the protection function that justifies treating it as government’s primary responsibility, while the other vital functions of government are relegated to second-class status. It details the extensive harms that occur by focusing narrowly on public safety as protection. And it explores critically the many reasons why, although protection is not in fact special, we nonetheless neglect all the other elements of individual safety.

First Page

725

Volume

102

Publication Date

2022

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