Ethical Issues and the Impact
On the Criminal Justice System
Jennifer Hack
Writing for the Criminal Justice Professional
Alvernia University
Introduction
Ethics provides us with a way to make moral choices when we are uncertain about what to do in a situation involving moral issues. In the book tittled How are we to live’ by P. Singer he states that, “in the process of everyday life, moral rules are desirable, not because they express absolute truth, but because they are generally reliable guides for normal circumstances (Singer 1995).” Within the study of ethics, there are three branches: meta-ethics, concerned with methods, language, logical structure, and the reasoning used in the interpretation of ethical terms,
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Some examples of such management and policy issues were written by G. Felkenesin in the book, Ethics in the Graduate Criminal Justice Curriculum, these include whether it is ethical to force someone to attend a treatment program against his or her will, and, given that the system of punishment is based on rehabilitation, whether it is ethical to send an offender to jail and not offer treatment programs to help him or her change behavior in order to regain freedom …show more content…
From time to time, a mass movement develops against a particular law or set of laws, reflecting a section of public opinion that claims that the law is wrong and should be repealed. Banks states that, “where there is a deliberate disregard of the law by those protesting its wrongness, the result can be acts of civil disobedience.
Ethical Problems and Issues When it comes to ethics and the criminal justice system there can be specific ethical problems and issues that might arise for professionals working in the criminal justice system. These problems and issues might for example, be concerned with how to exercise authority, with how to deal with conflicts between the personal and the professional, or with ethical issues confined within one particular part of the system, such as juvenile justice (Banks, 2016). Listed below are some ethical issues that could occur in the criminal justice system when it comes to Public Policy.
• The “War on Drugs”
• Government policies having implications for criminal justice professionals in issues such as youth confinement, fingerprinting of juveniles, and compulsory treatment such as mandatory participation in substance abuse programs or anger