Chapter 1 Ethics

values

Judgments of desirability, worth, or importance.

imperfect duties

Moral duties that are not fully explicated or detailed.

ethical issues

Difficult social or policy questions that include controversy over the "right" thing to do.

Give examples of how discretion permeates every phase of the criminal justice system and creates ethical dilemmas for criminal justice professionals.

Discretion can be defined as the power and authority to choose one of two or more alternative behaviors. At each stage of the criminal justice system, professionals have such discretion: legislators make decisions regarding the creation of laws, police make decisions on the street in their enforcement of those laws, prosecutors make decisions about which arrests to formally prosecute, judges make decisions about which evidence to allow, and correctional professionals make decisions that affect the lives of offenders.

Learn the definitions of the terms morals, ethics, duties, supererogatories, and values.

The terms morals and ethics come from Greek and Latin words referring to custom or behavioral practices. Morals refer to what is judged as good conduct. Ethics refers to the study and analysis of what constitutes good or bad conduct. Duties are obligatory acts (by law, practice, or morals). Supererogatories are those acts that go above and beyond duties. Values are statements of worth or importance.

supererogatories

Actions that are commendable but not required in order for a person to be considered moral.

Describe what behaviors might be subject to moral/ethical judgments.

Behaviors that can be adjudged under moral criteria are those that are acts (not thought) committed by humans (not animals) of free will (not by those judged as incompetent) and that affect others.

Explain the difference between ethical issues and ethical dilemmas.

Ethical issues are broad social or policy questions, while ethical dilemmas are situations in which one person must make a decision that can be judged as right or wrong, and where what is right is difficult to decide or is hard to do for some other reason.

morals

Principles of right and wrong.

duties

Required behaviors or actions, that is, the responsibilities that are attached to a specific role.

ethical dilemmas

Situations in which it is difficult for an individual to decide, either because the right course of action is not clear or because the right course of action carries some negative consequences.

discretion

The authority to make a decision between two or more choices.

ethics

The discipline of determining good and evil and defining moral duties

One of the criticisms of prosecutors in their use of discretion is that

decisions are often more influenced by politics than justice

Explain why the study of ethics is important for criminal justice professionals.

we study ethics because criminal justice is uniquely involved in coercion, which means there are many and varied opportunities to abuse such power. Second, almost all criminal justice professionals are public servants and, thus, owe special duties to the public they serve. Finally, we study ethics to sensitize students to ethical issues and provide tools to help identify and resolve the ethical dilemmas they may face in their professional lives.