The use of deception and dishonesty is widely accepted as a fact of life in policing. This paper thus defends a counterintuitive claim: Good faith is a normative foundation for the police as a political institution. Good faith is a core value of contracts, and policing is contractual in nature both broadly (as a matter of social contract theory) and narrowly (in regard to concrete encounters between law enforcement officers and the public). Given the centrality of good faith to policing, dishonesty and deception on par with fraud are justified only as a narrowly circumscribed investigative tool that is constrained by institutional commitments to the fair distribution of security and the rule of law. The practical upshot is the preclusion of most dishonest and deceptive police tactics on par with fraud, leading to an institution that is less proactive and more reactive.

欺骗和不诚实的使用已被广泛认为是警务工作中的一个事实。因此，本文捍卫了一个反直觉的主张：诚信是警察作为政治机构的规范基础。诚信是契约的核心价值，治安在广义上（作为社会契约理论的问题）和狭义上（就执法人员与公众之间的具体接触而言）本质上都是契约性的。鉴于诚信对于治安的核心作用，与欺诈同等的不诚实和欺骗行为只有作为一种狭隘的调查工具才合理，并受到对公平分配安全和法治的机构承诺的限制。实际结果是排除了与欺诈同等的最不诚实和欺骗性的警察策略，