Distributive Justice

Not every agency is perfect, some have their downfalls. Therefore, I will be conducting research on ethical issues in the probation department. By doing this then, my knowledge will expand to understand what issues are affecting the probation department. Once you deeply research the department you will find many issues that need to be resolved. Not only need to be resolved but, also address to proper personnel. Even though, I did not experience discrimination during my internship there was some issues in the workplace that I found unethical. Ethics is an important aspect of any workplace. Additionally, it requires for employees to treat people with respect. I will be studying the practices in the probation department and what leads them to having unethical issues. Researching in depth the department will fully give me an understanding of the way employees work in the department including probation officers. This topic is worth studying because it will help us discover any problems that surge from the probation department regarding, workplace equity, racial disparities in the department and other thing we might find to be unethical in the workplace. In addition, following this research I will recommend two policies that will improve the probation department be a better place. It is important to conduct research to change any policies, work on a better agency, reduce any racial disparities and any other things that need to be worked on. If we did not conduct any research on this important topic then, the probation department would be a disaster. People need to be aware if there is any discrimination that exists in the probation department then, they should not be afraid to report it. The following articles will briefly give us an insight of any ethical issues in the probation

The article, The myth of Justice, by Michael Dorris is intriguing and insightful because he provides his stance on justice and how he thinks we have come to the point of thinking life is supposed to be fair. He believes that justice is something that isn’t achievable. He even goes a step farther and says in his thesis that “justice is one of those palliative myths...” and that it isn’t even something that exists. It’s just something that we, as a human race, have developed and created over time. His thoughts are really intriguing because he has a point and he backs it up with things most people could probably relate too. However, I noticed that he never discussed when we actually think justice is achieved or gained. This has led me to disagree with his thought that justice is only a myth and it can’t be achieved.

In The Republic, the great philosopher Plato attempts to reveal through the character and dialogues of Socrates that justice is better when it is the good for which men must strive for, regardless of whether they could be unjust and still be rewarded. His method is to use dialectic, the asking and answering of questions. This method leads the audience from one point to another, supposedly with indisputable logic by obtaining agreement to each point before going on to the next, therefore, building an argument.

Justice and equality are both two very abstract concepts with numerous controversial definitions that are never agreed upon. Depending on the situations, justice can be the same as equality, or not. In the modern world, justice is often used as a political slogan, rather than a meaningful pursuit. Meanwhile equality is also one of the leading ideals of political movements, such as equal rights movements for marriage, voting, etc. In order to answer the question: is justice the same as equality, it is necessary to understand the precise meaning of equality and justice, the relationship between the two, the measurement of the two, and their current and historical status.

Despite the fact that the criminal law is essentially a moral enterprise, the legally-trained actors in the criminal justice system rarely explicitly examine exactly what moral principles the system is enforcing. One reason for the absence of moral analysis is that most lawyers are not trained in moral philosophy. Generally, legal education has never seriously attempted to incorporate moral principles into instruction.”

Throughout years in the criminal justice system, women being incarcerated has increased drastically. Since the amount of women offenders increased above male offenders, equality is sought out. There is an expand amount of gender disparities in federal cases. With women seeking equality through justice over the decades, changes should be made within the justice system to provide impartiality, acknowledge the gender difference and it’s importance.

This class is the first in my major of Criminal Justice, and throughout this class there will be a great deal of valuable information obtained. Justice can have several meanings to it because all of us are different in our own way, and we all will have different outlook on situations. Throughout this research paper you will learn about what justice means to me, and how I think I will impact society once I achieve my bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice. Secondly, you will be able to compare with the remaining of the class mates to see exactly how many of our views are the same or different. Last but not least, there will be at least two

These fluctuations in criminal justice policies are not just in local governing bodies; these changes are an effort to adapt to a new technologically based modern age, and that goal of adaptation radiates to all ends of the earth, thereby having a global reach. As all societies, and populations of people alter and change, and belief systems ebb and flow, the rules and laws that govern such people must change with them. It is imperative that a governing system stay current, for without an ever-changing system of behavioral structure then those societies race faster toward

"Any court dealing with an offender in respect of his offense must have regard to the following purposes of sentencing" retribution, denunciation, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation and reparation which will all be discussed in this essay.

Introduction: In today's societies, the government and criminal justice systems very much related to ethics because they both establish and carry out definite rights and duties. They also attempt to prevent and/or hold anyone accountable that deviates from these standards. (Wright 2012)

The Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) approach introduced first in 1993 through a grant to Florida Atlantic University (FAU) began as a national initiative of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). It seeks to serve juvenile offenders with a perspective to achieve restoration or a guaranteed favorable return to reverse their once delinquent behavior. It serves juvenile offenders providing them with a rehabilitation role instead of retribution role.

Inequality and inefficiency are universal issues plaguing society that countless economists have attempted to understand and address. Distinguished economists such as John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Robert Nozick, and Milton Friedman have developed their own theories of to achieve distributive justice, or a fair allocation of resources for all members of society. In Rawls’ justice as fairness and Sen’s capability theory, the economists come closest to achieving plans of distributive justice that retain the output-promoting effects of compensating differentials and recognizing the costs of Okun’s leaky bucket, but a plan that retains Rawls’ social contract and Sen’s capability focus would come closest to achieving justice.

The cry for equality of opportunity for the underprivileged and weaker sections of the society is being increasingly heard these days and this demonstrates the importance of notion of distributive justice in modern consciousness. Distributive justice embraces "the whole economic dimension of social justice, the entire question of proper distribution of goods and services within thesociety". It demands equality in the distribution or allotment of advantages or burdens. The advantages or burdens which are to be distributed are of numerous kinds such as wages, taxes, property, punishments, individual or social performances or rights and duties as allocated and apportioned by the legal system. Distributive justice aims to strike a balance in the socio-economic structure of the society to bring equipoise between the conflicting desires, interests and claims of the individual citizens. Justice P.N. Bhagwati succinctly explains distributive justice as under:-

As a part of this relationship individuals gave up some of their liberties in the interest of the common good, with the purpose of the law being to ensure that these common interests were met. For Beccaria, this meant that the law should be limited and written down so that people could make decisions on how to behave. More importantly, punishment was to fit the crime not the individual and was to be certain and swift (Williams & McShane, 2010). Offenders were to be seen as reasonable people with the same capacity for resisting offending behavior as non-offenders. The guiding principle of the criminal justice process was the presumption of innocence; and in this general framework punishment was to be seen as a deterrent to criminal behavior. The central concern of the law and the criminal justice process was therefore the prevention of crime through this deterrent function.

Laws serve several purposes in the criminal justice system. The main purpose of criminal law is to protect, serve, and limit human actions and to help guide human conduct. Also, laws provide penalties and punishment against those who are guilty of committing crimes against property or persons. In the modern world, there are three choices in dealing with criminals’ namely criminal punishment, private action and executive control. Although both private action and executive control are advantageous in terms of costs and speed, they present big dangers that discourage their use unless in exceptional situations. The second purpose of criminal law is to punish the offender. Punishing the offender is the most important purpose of criminal law