Coming soon

Licensed to Kill,Not Prepared to Serve

Every police encounter has someone's loved one on the other side of it. Licensed to Kill, Not Prepared to Serve asks why the law permits officers to use deadly force long before it prepares them to serve the people they meet.

Cover of Licensed to Kill, Not Prepared to Serve by William B. Jones: an officer in silhouette beneath storm clouds that form the faces of the people he serves

What the law permits and what a moment requires are not the same thing.

Drawing on more than thirty years in law enforcement, much of it in Chicago's most contested neighborhoods, and on research in criminal justice, social psychology and moral philosophy, William B. Jones examines the gap between what the law allows an officer to do and what a moment actually requires.

The book puts the people officers are sworn to serve first. It looks at the system that sends officers onto the street licensed to use force but not prepared to serve, and at what that costs the communities they enter.

Read more about the book

Coming next

The Encounter: How to Come Home

A companion volume written for young people and the families who love them. When the lights come on behind you, the goal is simple: come home.

William B. Jones writes as someone who has stood on both sides of the car window, as an officer and as a father of five who worries every time his children get behind the wheel.

William B. Jones

The author

William B. Jones

William B. Jones is a Chicago native and a law enforcement officer with more than thirty years of service, much of it in Chicago's most contested neighborhoods.

He is available for speaking engagements, training and interviews.

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