Ethical Dilemmas in the Correctional System - Essay Example

Ethical Dilemmas in Corrections Number The topic of justice in criminal justice has turned out to be more vital in the past decade as rising concerns on the accountability of the enforcement of the law and public authorities have prompted questions on ethics about those who have power over citizens. This topic does not just involve the people who work with the general population. However, the human rights activists and correctional officers are faced with ethical dilemmas each day. The correctional structure is set to deal with criminals and crime. The manner in which this goal is accomplished most effectively is a subject of constant debate. The outcome and reasons of crime are intricately linked to most other phenomena of the society. Opinions vary widely on how best crime can be dealt with. In courts and prisons, inmates usually are both the perpetrators and receivers of the behavior that is ethically questionable. This makes the debate to be more complicated as what they inflicted on other should also be inflicted on them. The paper analyzes the ethical dilemmas in the correctional field. The problems are whether punishment or rehabilitation should be upheld, the issue of food that is eaten in prison, whether the inmates should be granted a right to conjugal right, the prison healthcare systems and quality and if videographers should be present during an execution. There are two conflicting sides of these arguments. There are those that are for the punishment of the inmates by denying them their rights and those who think that denial of right should not be part of the punishment. Introduction Ethical dilemmas have been an issue for the ethical theorists since the days of Plato. Ethical dilemmas can be defined as situations wherein moral principles or ethical responsibility conflict in a manner that any likely way out of the dilemma is ethically intolerable. That is, any circumstance in which guiding moral standards cannot determine the course of action that is right or wrong is an ethical dilemma (Braswell, McCarthy & McCarthy, 2001). The evolution in the field of corrections has come from far in the days where there was “the Hands-off Doctrine” by the courts in the 1960s. During those days, it was believed that since the early history of the nation that condemned the rights of the prisoners were few also far between, if court cases were sustained by prisoners suing the correctional systems and jails, the cases were often put off by the judge. The rationale of the judge on the rights of prisoners was left to the prison experts who are the correctional administrators to define the rights of the prisoners. This correctional administration approach became famous as “The Hand-Off Doctrine.” It continued up to the middle of the twentieth century. The courts and the US congress later started to confront the problem of civil rights in the late 1960s (Pollock, 2007). This papers looks at the different ethical dilemmas in the correctional system and how they occur. Discussion One of the dilemmas exists in the concept of punishment and rehabilitation. These are diverse ways focusing on the process of correction. According to the first one, the inmate ought to suffer as a result of his crime and that prisons are places of suffering and deprivation. The second one acknowledges that in many instances, the prisoners will finally be let back into the society, and it is in the best interest of both the community and the prisoner to establish the reason of his law-breaking and assist the prisoner learn how to shun that in future (Eastman & McInerny, 1997). Rehabilitation proponents characterize a system that is punishment-based as barbaric and outmoded, whereas those who believe in punishment label rehabilitation as being too soft on criminals and crime. Another dilemma is on food that is eaten in prison. The food that an individual consumes has an impact on his health and it may also influence his propensity to violence and crime. The quality food that is offered in most prisons is both an ethical and health issue. When an individual is judged and imprisoned, health care and poor diet is not part of the judgment. It can thus be said that the poor diet is an unjust punishment. On the other hand, inmates who are fed on indulgent food may be viewed as gaining from the outcomes of their criminal acts. It thus becomes hard to determine which food is best for the inmates (Pollock, 2007). Another dilemma exists in the conjugal visits. Conjugal visits permits inmates to spend a night with their partners or wife. Conjugal visits are put in place to avoid imprisonment from distancing families and to assist the prisoners to go back to a stable livelihood after leaving prison. Those who advocate for these visits believe that they lower violence and tension in prison and aid in keeping marriages healthy (SCOTT, 2005). Those who are against the conjugal visits believe that it is not right to permit inmates to engage in sexual activity while imprisoned. In general, those who believe in conjugal rights also believe in rehabilitation, whereas their opponents tend to hold close, the view of punishment in the prison system. Another area of endless ethical dilemma in correctional systems is the prison healthcare services. In spite of the occasional pockets of inspiration offered by the programs that are affiliated with the academic institutions, healthcare providers have to negotiate relentlessly with the prison officials to offer essential and respectable care. The right to healthcare services that is articulated by the Supreme Court is inevitable in these continuing tensions. The reasoning of the court is that to put somebody in prison and failing to offer healthcare attention could lead to pain and suffering that is outlawed by the Eighth Amendment to the Bill. After good reasoning, there was a deeply flawed articulation of the right that is used to define the entitlement of medical care offered to prisoners with no purposeful indifference to their severe medical needs. By forgoing a principle that was, and is still exclusive in medicine and healthcare delivery [designed to avoid interfering on state negligence lawsuit on sufficiency of practice and principles of health care], the court assured that dispute would be part of the delivery. The initial structure that did not set up a right to standard of care or the care delivered according to the standards of the community set the stage for unending legal and ethical conflict (Blackburn, 2008). The purposeful indifference standard for the Eighth Amendment, forbidding brutal and punishment that is not usual presents a comparatively demanding standard for attesting liability. The Eighth Amendment which is interrelated by the federal courts neither render prison workers or officials liable in national cases for misconduct or accident, nor does it decide inter-professional arguments or the disputes involving the patients and professionals on the best choice of treatment. It however needs that enough resources be made accessible to cater for three basic rights- the right to care, the right to care that is ordered and the right to a certified medical judgment (SCOTT, 2005). Another ethical dilemma in correctional system is the presence of a videographer to record an execution taking place. The question is why the state or the defense department needs to record an execution. In an article, it was stated that recording such events would be helpful in spotting most problems with the lethal injection process, particularly if the recording captured all procedures from beginning to end. As a counter to this position, it can be argued that permitting video crew access to the execution room could interfere with the tight security that usually surrounds the prisoner in his final hours. There are also concerns that the video could be revealed or leaked to the general public. Conclusion A lot has been written on the rights of the victim in relation to the prison system. Those who believe in punishment argue that prisoners ought not to have pleasure since they took it away from their victims. While those who believe in healing justice give an alternative to prison by developing ways for the inmates to interact with their victims directly in ways that are healing, a little-addressed difficulty of this visible dichotomy is that most inmates are also victims of crime. These ethical dilemmas are unique to the correctional department. They include the ones that have been discussed and the rest. In order to determine the fundamental ethics of such dynamics, it is important to decide applicable ethical systems. An ethical system offers a basis for moral rules that result in moral actions such as determining the ideology to apply (Blackburn, 2008). All correctional workers who are trained properly know that prisoners can be manipulative and they ought to protect themselves from all attempts on their security. The field of correctional institutions can be a tough and challenging career. However, ethical standards have to be upheld in spite of tough situations in which correctional workers find themselves. References Braswell, M., McCarthy, B. R., & McCarthy, B. J. (2001). Justice, crime, and ethics. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson Pub. Co. Pollock, J. M. (2007). Ethical dilemmas and decisions in criminal justice. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. SCOTT, N. O. R. M. A. N. A. (2005). Counseling Prisoners: Ethical Issues, Dilemmas, and Cautions. Journal of Counseling & Development, 64, 4, 272-273. Eastman, N., & McInerny, T. (1997). Psychiatrists and the death penalty: Ethical principles and analogies. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 8, 3, 583-601. Blackburn, R. (2008). Ethical Issues in Motivating Offenders to Change. 139-155. Read More