Ethical Treatment of Prisoners

Ethical Dilemmas are a pressing issue within any law enforcement or law agency the power that people have in positions such as these force them to share an equal or greater amount of reasonability. Ethics is defined as “the branch of philosophy that typically deals with values relating to human conduct with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions”. This definition of ethics courtesy of Webster dictionary shows just how complex the intricacies of ethics are and how major dilemmas might negatively impact departments for instances lawyers are plagued with ethical dilemmas on a day to day basis such as Lawyer advocacy, conflict of interest, Professional

The criminal justice system is one of the most important components in the public service system. Since it is a system that citizens encounter daily it would be most beneficial for those who are employed to behave as ethical leaders. Leadership skills and ethical behavior are both parts of the duties of any officer serving the law. Often employees are placed in quick decision situations that can have fatal outcomes if not handled properly. By ensuring that all officers of the law have a set of functioning ethical leadership skills can not only develop a well-rounded individual, but also builds the relationship between the community they serve to protect. The police and other officers of the law have great discretion and power over an individual which makes having responsible, ethically behaving persons on the front lines even more important. With the right training and education, ethical officers can set the bar and improve the quality of life of the community they serve as well as other officers.

Even though prisoners are incarcerated, they still are entitled to certain rights. There is a lot of debate about which rights prisoners should have because they can’t have too much freedom, and they also can’t have too little freedom. If inmates have much freedom, chaos would reign over the facility. No inmate would learn to truly change their ways and fit back into the community successfully. If too little freedom is given, inmates would be neglected and treated like animals. The perfect balance is needed to achieve a functional correctional facility.

“How did we get here? How is it that our civilization, which rejects hanging and flogging and disembowelling, came to believe that caging vast numbers of people for decades is an acceptably humane sanction?”, asks Adam Gopnik, a writer for The New Yorker in “The Caging of America”. So how did we get here? What has it done to our society? Gopnik elaborates on these questions and many more as he explicates the history of prisons, the convolution of their systems, and the detrimental consequences that prisoners are left to face. Although Gopnik undeniably articulates, “we need to take more care,” he lacks a concrete solution to the epidemic that is mass-incarceration. But in order for us to unearth this solution, we must first retrace the history of mass incarceration and reevaluate the egregious effects it has on our society.

This paper will analyze the relationship between ethics and professional behavior in the administration of criminal justice. It will also

Equalizing the constitutional rights of prisoners and the functions of the jail or prison can create great strain on not only the correctional facilities’ staff but on the inmates as well. The treatment of prisoners is typically left completely to the prudence of prison administrators and other correctional officials. With that being said, this paper will discuss the differences between harmonizing those constitutional rights of prisoners and the functions of the facility. It will also explain the rights that prisoners are required to have, and how these rights are balanced within other aspects of the correctional institution.

In the 1940’s, post World War II, the Nuremberg trials were held. The Nuremberg Trials were for Nazi German officers who had participated in the planning of the atrocities done to the Jewish people during the holocaust. One of the charges was experimentation of Jewish people from concentration camps, similar to how we treat our prisoners in Jails today. Prisoners are a very vulnerable population who have been tested on for a long time, many unethical tests have been done to penitentiaries across the country and many times they are forced to test by employees of the prisons. The ethics of allowing prisoners to participate in medical research is very wrong and should not be admitted to.

Although inmates may not have full Constitutional rights while incarcerated, they are entitled to basic human rights, freedom and dignity. U.S. penal systems have been reformed at the beginning of the 1960’s. The reason for this reformation is to prevent inhumane treatment, provide inmates with religious freedom, and due process (Smith, 2010). The U.S. Supreme Court

In the world we live in today there is, has been, and always will be an infinite amount of controversies throughout society. Perhaps one of the most important, being that it could jeopardize our existence, is the debate of how to deal with what most everyone would consider unwanted. The members of the prison population can range from petty thieves to cold hearted serial killers; so the conflict arises on how they can all be dealt with the most efficient way. The sides can result in a wide range of opinions such as simply thinking a slap on the wrist is sufficient; to even thinking that death is the only way such a lesson can be learned. While many believe it is ok to punish and torture prisoners, others feel that cruel treatment of prison

Ethics in the criminal justice system is customary when the administration measures are sometime virtuous and imperfect, attractive and unattractive and the ideas of production values are perceptive that this may be right and wrong. Working in the criminal justice system, every decision and results must meet the needs of the citizens and the law enforcement in regards to the balancing concern. The concerns are from prosecuting the guilty and respecting the right of the accused, protecting the victims, and creating a safe community. This paper will give analysis of the critical thinking concerning the relationship between ethics and professional behavior role of the law enforcement

I agree with Ashleigh, Donna, and Grace that correctional treatment plans should be ethically sensitive because it should target to specific ethnicities such as the First Nations and Sikh inmates.

Ethics is the set of principles govern conduct. I would “lead, manage, and administer” ethics by reminding the employee of the oath of office,they took. I would remind the employee of their responsibility to carry out the will of the majority of all people and to protect the rights of all people. As summarized in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, members of the criminal justice system are to “ensure justice” and promote “domestic tranquility.” As a criminal justice administrator I could lose my job if one of my employees act unethical and unprofessional, so I have to make sure my employees are trained to be ethical. All my employees will be trained on the police code of conduct.

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)

Working with the prisoners, it is clearly truly uplifting for everyone to hear general comments regarding overcoming their personal struggles. It is a great outcome for them to experience opportunities and to work for a second chance at everyday life. My eyes have opened to how important expressing your feelings can be through art. Prisoners come to rely on art to help maintain a peaceful mind and to forget the negatives in life, allowing others to see things through their eyes. Prison Life and Human Worth by Paul W. Keve (1974:15) states “To the person who never has served time it is hard to realise just how much of a daily humiliating ‘Put-down’ Prison life can be even in a well-run institution”. Keve (1974) eloquently describes the bitterly

The ethical theory of utilitarianism and the perspective on relativism, of prison labor along with the relativism on criminal behavior of individuals incarcerated are two issues that need to be addressed. Does the utilitarianism of prisoner’s right laws actually protect them? Or are the unethical actions of the international and states right laws exploiting the prison labor? Unethical procedures that impact incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, the relativism of respect as people and not just prisoner’s; the safety of all inmates and correctional staff, are all issues worth continuous reflection.