Ethics and Professional Behavior in Criminal Justice

Ethics and Professional Behavior in Criminal Justice

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Ethics and Professional Behavior in Criminal Justice

Ethics refer to a set of principles of right conduct or a theory or a system of moral values. Ethical behavior can be considered as doing what is right with accordance to the unwritten standards of the society. Therefore, in different societies, there may be different sets of what is regarded as ethical in those locations. Similarly in the different working areas and different fields, there may be different ethical behaviors, however in all cases, ethics govern the right conduct and uphold the moral values of a given area.

Professional behavior in my opinion, often exist to reinforce whatever is put in place by the ethical requirements of the said location. They are there to deal with the imperfections of human nature. In as much as there are ethical guidelines in every different field, several times this may need to be guarded by the management to prevent a breach in the code of conduct. This is where professional behavior then comes in. Ethics act as a baseline to evaluate and guide moral decision making in every department.

Ethics refers to a set of values that enable an individual to decipher between right and wrong. It basically guides the application of moral principles, standards of behavior, or set of values regarding proper conduct in the workplace as individuals and in a group setting. Ethics are very important in the workplace because of several reasons. To begin with, it allows for good inter-personal relationships between different employees. It also enables an individual to perform their duties as required because not only are they bound by the terms of the contract of the workplace but also, they are obliged to perform what is ethically acceptable.

Several companies have different ethical standards, however most ethical values revolve around the following values: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, and Caring. Upholding good ethics facilitates good relationships between the management or the Supervisors and the employees, between the employees themselves and between the employees and supervisors and their customers. Stipulated ethics within the workplace has several benefits including fostering of loyalty, creation of a desirable work environment, production of good results, creation of good references and good office morale. It also brings about growth and expansion within the company which then is followed with recognition of the excellent performance of the company.

The Criminal Justice department is most often the first contact to the law enforcement system that an individual encounters following a crime or incidents that require reporting to the justice departments. It is a field that requires the ethical code to be upheld by all means. This is because it is mainly in charge of providing justice to those that deserve justice and to ensure the law offenders get to be punished. However, on several occasions, innocent individuals are often punished while the guilty ones walk away free. This is mainly evident in the highly corrupt countries among the world. It’s for this reason that those that work in the criminal justice department should really uphold the ethical principles and professional conduct to ensure that justice is served in all the cases they work on.

Critical thinking is a very important aspect that has to be put in place even in the midst of using the specific ethical conduct and professional behavior within the criminal justice. This is because, to begin with, the code of ethical conduct is not cast on stone, it is merely present to guide the moral principles. At times one might be faces with situations that require them to think beyond the code of conduct provided at the workplace, the professional conduct surrounding it and the moral principle of that society. It is in these specific cases that critical thinking will have to be put into place. In such situations, one can rarely be victimized because they conformed to the standard set in place by the workstation and the societal principles as well. However, critical thinking is often accepted when whatever one needs to do is within the law and doesn’t involve a breach of the law in all dimensions.

In the rapidly evolving world, there needs to be continuous evaluations and education of all the law enforcement officers in the world. Laws are rapidly changing, systems are easily being reorganized and if one keeps doing what has been done for fifty years and over, there will e no development. The criminal justice system will be stagnated with old and archaic ways with the wastage of the taxpayers’ money. For our station for instance, there needs to be several seminars at least to keep us abreast of whatever is changing in the today society and what changes should be brought about in order to have the changes incorporated into our system. Most importantly we need to have a seminar mainly in ethics training for the law enforcement officers working in the unit.

There are five main reasons as to why this seminar is needed in the unit. First and foremost is to boost whatever the new law enforcement officers learn while in training. On several occasions, the new employees are faced with a lot of dilemma concerning what they should be practically doing when faced with the real situation. When in school, they learn all the theoretical aspects of ethics and professional conduct and this is quite evident during their interviews and on one on one conversations with them. However, when a classical situation arises, they are first faced with confusion before they settle on what should be done. And when they settle on the right step that should be done, they are not confident enough about their move and therefore they may end up making a sub optimal decision with dire consequences on the involved parties.

Next, those that have been working in the department for several years need to be reminded of what sets of standards are required in the modern society. This will involve a discussion on the ethical issues that exist in the criminal justice department. It will also review the professional code of conduct that should be exhibited by the law enforcement officers in the department. By so doing each and every employee will know by heart what is required from them in different circumstances.

The third reason for this seminar is to be able to develop critical thinking skills. As discussed above, critical thinking is a very important aspect within the criminal justice system. Individuals need to learn what to do when faced with very serious challenges within the workplace that require them to think beyond the normal set of principles. Other skills that also need to be developed include inter personal relation skills. This will mainly help the officers to be able to interact well with their colleagues and in so doing develop a desirable working area. The third skill that should be developed includes individual and public skills. This revolves around the areas of the appropriate use of authority by the different individuals, use of appropriate language, avoidance of harassment of any form be it sexual, racial or ethnic harassment.

Honesty is a very important aspect of ethics especially in the criminal justice system. It is for this reason that it’s the fourth reason for the proposal of the seminar and training. Honesty encompasses several aspects in the workplace. To begin with, in our department, it’s usually evidently seen in terms of taking credit. Although this may often go unreported, there are several instances that different employees often take credit of a good and desirable outcome yet in actual fact they didn’t have a hand in that occurrence. This in turn prevents the actual appreciation of the officer that did the commendable job and makes them loose their desire to do better because of the lack of appreciation on their part. It is a very common act and should be desisted from in all manners available. It is part of ethical conducts and professional code of conduct and therefore should really be stressed upon on the seminar if the department is bound to develop to greater heights.

The final reason to have this reason is in order to train the law enforcement personnel on how to deal with ethical dilemmas. Ethical dilemmas are situations that one must make a critical decision about what to do. On several occasions, they involve a struggle within the officer in their own personal decision making. Examples of these situations include penalties such as death penalties, racial profiling, and the previous decriminalization of soft drugs. These situations often makes one question their morality because for instance the death penalty.

Every person, irrespective of their moral background was raised to know that murder is a wrong that shouldn’t be done, except in few communities who believe that certain levels of lawbreaking are punishable by death. However, for most people that believe in the existence of a Deity, they often believe that matters of death are to be left to him and that a wrong cannot be made right by another wrong. So if one of the law enforcement officers is faced with such a situation and he or she believes in the existence of a deity, they should be able to do what is expected of them without having to question their morality.

There are some cases when an individual often performs what is considered a crime in the course of a patriotic act. Or rather, they believe all in all that their act was a patriotic on in one way or another. As a law abiding officer who is patriotic for that matter, one may be torn between decision because they may want to believe that its patriotism that ked to that behavior. However accepting this may need to further breaking of the law with this as an excuse. Therefore the training should be able to address all these issues and ensure the officers are well conversant with all issues surrounding ethics and professional conduct within the workplace.