Ethical Decision Making Process
CMRJ308 Ethics in Criminal Justice
Ethics seems to be a popular topic for discussion these days, especially in law enforcement. During the past few years law enforcement has been the subject of increased scrutiny across the country; Rodney King, Ruby Ridge, evidence planting in Philly and Mark Furham’s testimony. The last decades have seen the issues of ethics come to the forefront of our society predominantly through TV, radio and print. Since that is the case law enforcement officers should represent the highest level of ethical conduct in a community. In a perfect world that would be the case, whether they were in the spot light or not, in most cases it still is true
A major proportion
…show more content…
Officers live and work in a constantly changing and dynamically social context in which they are exposed to a large amount of ethical conflict. When either unprepared or unaware officers are more likely to go with the flow then they would be if they were adequately prepared to face potential ethical risk. For unethical acts to occur three distinct elements of police corruption must be present; misuse of authority, misuse of official capacity and misuse of personal …show more content…
“When law enforcement administrators and educators were asked what is the primary cause of ethical problems in policing today, most said it is a reflection of the moral decay and the loss off values in our society today. Many law enforcement leaders felt the current generations of police officers do not have the moral and ethical standards of previous generations.” (Beech, 2000) What is learned from this research can make training and leadership much more focused and effective. Officers must be made aware that ethical behavior is in their best interest and that policing their own are the only course to maintain the