3.12: Ethics in Criminal Justice

Ethics in Criminal Justice

As you went through the theories in this chapter you may have noticed how many theories placed responsibility on the offender but yet other theories placed the responsibility on a variety of factors ranging from poverty, to body type, to urban decay, to parenting styles, and more. Given the multitude of possibilities of why people have committed crime it may be difficult to reach decisions of how to handle people in situations you encounter. Fortunately, there are some ethical guidelines that can guide us.

Reach decisions

To ethically reach a decision it is suggested that you combine several things. First, when trying to reach a decision one should use their intellect. People that can use their critical and creative thinking skills are better positioned to use the same skills in reaching a decision. In addition to using your intellect, however, you also should add moral reasoning. Moral reasoning helps us stay grounded so that we not only can assess a situation with our intellect but we can understand it with our reasoning. For instance, we may arrest a youth who shoplifted a candy bar and our intellect can clearly sift through the facts to make sure we have the right youth and that they were in fact stealing the candy bar but beyond that we can engage our moral reasoning to try to understand, why the youth did this and what a good response from us would be. Our response would likely differ depending on whether the youth shoplifted just to avoid paying for the youth shoplifted because they are neglected at home and have not eaten in some time and do not have the money to pay for food.

In addition to intellect and moral reasoning, we should also reach decisions by using a heightened sense of conscience. In the above scenario, if the use is in fact neglected our conscience would probably guide us to make sure that they are fed quickly after the booking procedures at the juvenile detention center. Our conscience would also guide us to make notes in our files that an investigation of the parents should probably be started so that the youth can be better cared for.

By using the elements of intellect, reasoning, and conscience we can reach decisions that are ethical and support the quest for justice.

Don’ts

While trying to reach decisions not only are there guidelines about what to do there are three suggestions about what you should not do. When trying to reach a decision don’t rely on emotion. In the heat of an argument or the pain of rejection, emotion would encourage us to lash out and say or do something that is unethical and that we would likely regret later. Particularly, in tense situations in the field, it is important to control your emotions and keep your head clear.

The next general rule is “don’t rely on popular feelings.” This rule may make you imagine when your mother or father may have said something like “if all your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it?”. While this may be a sarcastic way of stating it, the principle is the same—just because something is popular or other people are doing it does not necessarily make it right. If the popular feeling is to pick on the handicap student and make fun of them to increase your own popularity, while this might be popular this is known as bullying and is highly unethical.

The third general rule is don’t support immoral principles. It can be very difficult to speak out when you see something that is wrong. It would be easier to just go along with it. The problem is that by going along with it, you have inadvertently supported that behavior. We see this concept with bullying. Once the bullying starts many other people will do it as well because it is easier to go along with it than be the individual that stands out against it. Ethically, however, the correct the ethical though difficult decision would be to refuse to participate in the bullying and instead perhaps help the victim or at least report the behavior to someone with authority.