Ethical issues in the criminal justice field
Abstract
For a long time now, ethics have been criminal justice’s main component. The first philosopher from the western side to study ethics systematically was Aristotle. Majorly, his studies entailed an examination of moral judgment ethics. His work marked the foundation of a lot of western systems of criminal justice in the many decenniums that followed. Revision and revisiting of criminal justice ethics have been done continuously. An example of such alterations is the 1989 revision of the code of ethics. After the revision was done, new guidelines for the conduct of police officers were provided. These guidelines put an emphasis on the significance of separating personal feelings from the work of the police. Additionally, the emphasis was put on how discretion confidentiality and integrity is crucial to the police officers as they perform their daily duties.
As there is no area of work or life that is free of ethical dilemmas, we can’t exclude the criminal justice field. The enforcement of the law is often something difficult as a lot of situations require behaviour that is appropriate by the code of ethics. Nevertheless, numerous shreds of evidence have suggested that police ethics have been inexplicably violated for quite some time now, resulting in severe implications both on the individual level and in large scale. Unprofessional behaviours such as corruption, applying of force excessively, discrimination of people, failing to take appropriate actions and racism are some of the unethical issues in the criminal justice field. Because the increased number of scandals that are linked with such unprofessional behaviours have frequently made the headlines of the media, studying about the ethical issues in criminal justice has been a crucial subject both to professionals in the field and researchers. This research paper underscores some of the ethics in the criminal justice field and their implications to professionals in the field.
Introduction
Ethics is a moral philosophy that deals with the rights and wrongs of how people live. In simple terms, ethics define the code of conduct of people. On the other hand, an ethical issue is that problem which poses a lot of difficulty to a person when deciding on the right course of action to take. The person usually decides on whether the problem is ethical or unethical. Professionals in the criminal justice field should uphold high standards of codes of ethics and should be of high morals, to carry out their duties without any form of business. They should also possess individual leadership skills since at one point in their career; they will have to be leaders of their own. In a chance that the professionals disregard their code of ethics, they are bound to make mistakes. This is because their responsibility mainly involves making decisions about other people and their fates.
However, it is very unfortunate that so many cases of unethical conduct have been reported from the field of criminal justice. Most of the professionals tend to disregard their codes of ethics, making the judicial system to be one of the most corrupt departments in any government of any country. This has prompted many kinds of research to be conducted towards the ethical issues in the criminal justice system- as this research is, and the challenges that the ethical issues pose to professionals in the criminal justice field.
Thesis statement
The ethics of criminal justice comprise of many fields and concerns that are raised towards justice implementation. Racial profiling, bargaining for defendants that have been charged with assaults, prosecuting of young offenders in adult courts, the use of rehabilitation centres as the primary mode of correcting offenders are some of the ethical issues in the criminal justice field. Therefore, along with identification of ethics in the system of criminal justice, this research provides sufficient information about the outcomes of those ethical issues and their influence on professionals in the entire criminal justice system.
- Body
Ethical issues in the criminal justice field
Racial profiling
In various parts of the country, many people and communities have seen the disastrous effects of racial profiling. Due to this, Committees have been formed in many states and cities, whose purpose is to research on the impact of race and ethnicity in the enforcement of the law. Because of the common methodological setbacks encountered during these studies, it is nearly impossible for the conducted research to meet the desired expectations of the study perfectly. Because of this setbacks, collaborative planning for advancements within the system of justice should be employed by all the parties that take part in the researches before they even begin, to ensure that the main goal, which is racial equity within the system of justice has been addressed.
When a community allows research on racial profiling to be carried out it indicates that the community has reaffirmed its efforts towards the preservation of values, as the research enables the community to do backtracking and realize their mistakes then give details on how to rectify them. For equal justice to be attained, efforts should be made towards doubling the recruitment of splinter groups into those positions that bear a lot of responsibilities in the criminal justice field. Additionally, groups carrying research on racial profiling should merge in order to formulate strategies that are aimed at ensuring that neutrality in races has been met in the criminal justice field.
Bargaining for defendants that have been charged with assaults
The involvement of the judicial justice systems in the process of bargaining for individuals who have been charged with assaults has sparked a lot of controversy. According to (Berdejó, 2018), is the characteristic that defines the criminal justice system nowadays. In plea bargaining, the defendant is subjected to a peripheral sentence provided that she agrees to plead that she/he is guilty and avoid trial. According to the statistics collected by the Bureau of justice in 2018, almost 90% of both federal and state courts’ cases, have been disposed via plea bargaining. When explaining these infrequent occurrences, the professionals in the criminal justice field have argued that prosecutors have a limited time of pursuing all indicted as they are several of them in a day. However, it is clear to everyone that there is no need for such programs in the court system as it promotes impartiality Because of plea bargaining, multitudes of innocent defendants have been coerced to plead guilty due to fear.
Additionally, application of plea bargaining will make those habitual offenders whose records are violent to receive verdicts less lenient verdicts thus lesser punishments. The government should come up with alternative programs that can replace this program as it intimidates offenders that are ignorant or those that have offended others for the first time, as they are not completely conversant with the law. Thus plea- bargaining is ineffective and should only be applied in instances that the prosecutors have adequate and strong evidence, otherwise, it mostly satisfies the ego of the prosecutor.
Prosecuting young offenders in Adult Courts
Another ethical issue in the system that needs to be amended quickly is the application of waivers for offenders who are teenagers to adult courts and punishing them instead of adults. For a number of years, there has been a clear distinction between the juvenile courts and the adult courts. However, over the years, this has changed as there has been an increase in the number of crimes committed by juveniles. The level of violence within the young generation has risen. The affinity of the current generation of kids towards crimes is higher than older generations. Due to the fear that the kids won’t be controlled anymore, the criminal justice system has been compelled to include their cases in the courts for grown-ups. By doing this, the courts have messed up as they have defied the traditional doctrines of treating a young offender differently from adult offenders. However, the increased number of crimes that the juveniles get involved with day in day out has made them susceptible to rehabilitation.
Nevertheless, because of the mistreatments that the young offenders have gone through in the name of rehabilitation, the focus has now been shifted to eradicating the system as it brings more harm than good. This doesn’t promote any growth to the young offenders as it doesn’t meet the purpose that it was intended for which is correcting the juveniles. Noticeably, since the system was introduced, the number of crimes committed by juveniles all over the country have increased, indicating its ineffectiveness. Thus, eradication of the system is necessary. Luckily more people are now becoming convinced that trying of the juveniles in adult courts is not appropriate and time has come for the old system to be reinstalled.
Using rehabilitation centres as the primary mode for correcting offenders
In addition to the above ethical issues, another rising ethical issue is the use of rehabilitation centres as the primary mode of correcting offenders. People are torn between using the rehabilitation centres as a method of correcting offenders and adopting the former method, that is, the use of punishment. Correction of offenders is a matter that has been directed towards America’s rehabilitation department over and over again. The department is supposed to channel all its efforts towards ensuring that the rehabilitation process of the lawbreakers is successful.
By tracing back to the history of rehabilitation, we find that the idea of using rehabilitation instead of punishment was advocated for at the beginning of the 20th century. This was followed by policy changes such as separating juvenile and adult courts. After this, the use of rehabilitation centres and the treatment of offenders became a correctional philosophy that was dominant. In the period that followed, the system faced many setbacks as it failed its goals, making the American community to criticize the program saying that the former method was effective. Since then, the debate on whether the system is effective or not has never stopped.
Challenges of ethics to criminal justice professionals
To succeed as criminal justice professionals, we need to employ strategic thinking in all our actions and act ethically as we develop solutions to crimes and terrorism. However, in the course of developing these solutions, we meet the following challenges.
- The use of drugs
It has been confirmed severally that above 60% of people that are arrested as a result of committing crimes are drug abusers, implying that the relationship between drug use and violence is strong. Also, the more illegalization of drugs is advocated for the more the crimes committed increase. This poses a challenge on whether to legalize drugs or not, for the crime rates to reduce.
- The handling of juvenile offenders
As juvenile offenders are currently involved greatly in crimes, their number in courts has increased drastically. The challenge comes in when figuring out what to do with them.
- Violence against women
About 1.3 million women are physically assaulted by their partners each year. The challenge is deciding on the effective measures to take in order to stop such kind of cases.
- The three strikes legislation
The three strikes legislation system requires that when a person has been arrested and convicted thrice, then he or she is “out”. This poses a great challenge on decision making, especially when a person offends the fourth time.
Conclusively, ethics are the ones which mark the foundation of the criminal justice system. They are of great help to the society as they enable us to develop the moral reasoning that we use in our day to day operations and define criminal activities. Generally, for the criminal justice field to be effective, then it must operate ethically.