Ethical Dilemmas in the Legal Field of Criminal Justice System - Case Study Example

Ethical Dilemmas in the Legal Field of Criminal Justice System Ethical Dilemmas in the Legal Field of Criminal Justice System The parole board The ethical issue and item of concern in this case is the overcrowding of prisoners while the relevant authorities are aware of the situation. The moral issue is the possession of the knowledge about the suffering experienced by the prisoners in state prisons and not taking the relevant measures to combat the situation. It thus shows the lack of concern by the relevant authority towards the people they are serving. Nonetheless, there is a moral and ethical dilemma created in the sense of whether it is appropriate to released criminals who are likely to repeat their offences and hence pose more threats to the community. On the other hand, a question is raised whether it is appropriate to arrest more of the criminals and hence not respect their right towards proper humane conditions by making the state prisons more congested. A more congested environment is likely to pose a number of problems related to health to the inmates. However, they are not taking the right and appropriate measures to correct the situation. They include the chair at the parole booard who knows the conditions in state prison. The main reason as to why the Advocates could be threatening the correctional with Federal lawsuits is to put pressure on them to increase the number of facilities and make the prisoners more comfortable and not exposed to poor conditions through the congested facilities. Thus, as the chair of the parole board Robert is motivated by the fact that less risk is presented with the issue of congestion as opposed to the likely chances of re-offense by the criminals who are released on parole. This is because it causes a greater chance of threats and insecurity to the larger public. However, the results of the risk assessment of the offenders also show instances of offenders being habitual criminals who are likely to engage in more criminal activities once they are released back to the society. In this case, the relaxation of standards is likely to increase the number of offenders released to the community, hence presenting great danger to the citizens. On the other hand, the incineration of most of the offenders who also include the petty offenders increases the level of congestion within the prison, thus acting as a form of violation against their rights since it presents numerous problems and risks to their lives. The situation can be corrected through the expansion of the facilities or building of more facilities to accommodate more inmates. In this case, therefore, the decision to be made by the chair of the board is to release prisoners who have shown instances of change and the ability not to make a re-offence (Pollock, 2012). The solution is to involve the offenders in self assessment to identify individual traits and thus be in a position to identify those who cannot commit offenses again when released back to the community under the community supervised correctional methods. The ethical basis of this is not to generalize all offenders, but deal with them on an individual level and identify the different factors that motivate their behavior. With this, the correctional system will only have those who deserve to be in the prisons within them and thus reduce the level of congestion. Both issues will have been solved since the community will also not be presented with greater risk of having serious and unchanged criminals released back to the society (Pollock, 2012). 2. The warden The ethical dilemma in this case involves two parties who are the staff members at the correctional facility and the community. Therefore, the moral question is whether it is appropriate to exposed members of the public to danger by releasing offenders without and established criteria of finding out their level of getting engaged in the same offences or other similar ones or if it is proper to have a correctional facility that is continually growing in population understaffed hence exposing the staff members to a lot of risks and with many challenges in their jobs. This extends to the issue where it will not be good for the staff to exempt themselves from work at most times thus presenting the inmates with challenges that include the provision of substandard services. It is not appropriate to reduce the operational budget at the correctional facility yet its population has been growing over the years while the number of staff members that was proportional to the number of inmates at the facility years back remains the same. In this case, therefore, there are two major issues of concern. William is faced with the problem of insufficient funds to cater for more staff members at the correctional facility. I think that his course of action is mainly influenced by his worry and concern about the staff available. This is because with their limited number and the increasing number of inmates there is likely to be a great problem at the facility (Pollock, 2012). There is no proportionality in the ratio of staff members to the high number of inmates being arrested recently. Thus, this small number of staff members will not be in a position to manage the increasing number of inmates at the facility. It is because of this issue that has been shown to possess adverse effects on the operation of the correctional facility that William has put forward his best arguments to stop his operational budget from being cut within the fiscal year. The main motivation behind the reasoning by William is that with the correctional facility being over a century old, there is need to incorporate a number of changes within the operation. The other issue being presented in this case is whether it will be appropriate to decrease the number of prisoners by offering other correctional methods that are not based on the prison facilities or do not rely on them. However, there is the other issue of a lack of risk assessment methods hence the release of prisoners on an assumption basis. This, on the other hand, presents great danger to the members of the society whose lives and properties will be put at risk by the release of these offenders (Pollock, 2012). Thus, the main issue is whether to endanger the lives and working conditions of the employees or the general population living outside the correctional facilities. For a balance to be created between these two issues it is important for William as the warden at the correctional facility to push for more funds to enable the employment of more staff members. In addition, more money should be provided to pay overtime dues to the staff members since they are working for long hours and are being overworked at the same time. It will only act as an incentive to motivate them to work more. Alternatively, funds should also be directed towards the hiring of more employees to prevent them from being overworked as opposed to a sole focus on food and medical needs of the prisoners. All the needs of individuals involved should be considered. With this, they will be able to serve the growing number of prisoners better. In addition, they will not need to make the different excuses for their absence from work. There will be enough staff to take sufficient shifts and hence enough rest, which will not interfere with the normal operations of the correctional facility (Pollock, 2012). 3. The District attorney The moral or ethical issue presented in this case is whether Martha should leave the individuals who are clearly known to belong to the drug culture to her or to allow their prosecution with lack of a probable cause that leads to the immense increase in criminal cases. There is thus a question as to whether the drug dealers who are also known to engage in actions that involve guns should be left at large to endanger the lives of the public or owing to the fact that their activities are known, should just be prosecuted without following the requirements of the law by doing the arrests without a probable cause to support the cases. This relates to whether she should push forward with her individual campaign ambitions and aspirations by joining the rest of her colleagues or defend those who voted her in through the same issues that she is about to compromise. Thus, should she consider the aggressive arrest of the offenders which is likely to increase the number of criminal cases immensely or should she advocate for the appropriate legal rights of those involved in these activities as they are continuously considered to be losers. As the District Attorney, she is faced with the dilemma of whether to proceed with her campaign strategy and promises or to sympathize with the offenders who although they really participate in activities that are influenced by drugs should not be prohibited without probable cause as the law requires. The best strategy is to continue with the aggressive campaign that has been started by the Mayor and the police. This will be the most appropriate step since it will be an indication that she is in support with the establishments proposed by her colleagues to combat crime. It will also be an injustice towards the criminals in the city since they will not receive the deserved correctional facilities. It is important for her to continue with her decision of being engaged in the aggressive prosecution. Ethically, it will not create the impression of her being biased towards any of the parties with which she has to deal and interact with. Thus, the best thing for her to do is to push on with the ideas on her campaign platform in such a way that she should make a lot of efforts to ensure that the prosecuted offenders are well questioned, investigated and that the arrests take place on the basis of the presence of supportive probable cause. She should also ensure that measures are put into place to enable the court cases that deal with drug dealings to be conducted with sufficient levels of evidence. This will ensure that those individuals who are only engaged in drugs without necessarily being involved in gin activities are not combined with the rest and prosecuted under unjustifiable basis. With the appropriate corrective measures, she will reduce the chances of plea bargaining and prison sentences for convicted felons as she had envisioned and promised during her campaigns. Ultimately, she will be able to fulfill the promises made during her campaign as well as work in the people with whom they share an office in the effort towards crime reduction (Pollock, 2012). 3. The Officer This case is filled with the ethical and moral consideration of whether it is appropriate to ignore the arrest of an individual who has been found in the possession of contraband since it is considered a petty crime yet you do not have any means of proving his identification details. This can only be done through arrest which is considered by most police officers to be causing the overloaded dockets of the prosecutor and no more room in the local jails. In this case, a dilemma is presented in relation to the appropriate step to take between a duty that brings about and represents chastity in cases that are referred to as petty drugs cases from her patrol and the efforts to be made towards making the system less clogged through the dealings with major cases. In this sense, she does not know if it is better to leave the pending arrest and respond to the backup call instead of processing an arrest that even her colleagues to consider as being time consuming and minor. Thus, it can be debated on the action that is better between having to deal with many petty cases and letting them grow until they are out of hand. In addition, a major question arises on which need is important between the health and well being of the individual found to be in possession of drugs or having to deal with many cases that are considered minor. If she fails to make the arrest, she will not be able to get the identification of the man. Subsequent arrests may thus not yield the appropriate results. In addition, the health and habits of the young man may be adversely affected if the arrest is not made and correction provided. The lack of taking part in the backup and proceeding with the arrest might be condemned by the officers and other colleagues as well (Pollock, 2012). It is just appropriate that Linda holds on to the criminal and is set on arresting him in order to obtain his fingerprints and other identification details. It is an ethical step since it will establish whether the individual has been involved in any other types of crimes before. This is a possible chance since he is a proven drug dealer already. Also, is necessary to find out whether he has been caught doing drugs during previous searches. With this, she will be playing a key role in ensuring that she does not let a potential criminal on lose and hence endanger the lives and properties of the public. This is because it will just be as important as taking part and handling other calls for service. Linda is expected to notify the police dispatcher about the other nature of the crime that she is still handling regardless of the fact that it is considered petty. It will not be appropriate for her to leave the culprit and proceed to the other crime of burglary that is in progress where she is supposed to act as backup. Thus she should be able to deal with the crime fully to its end since she acts according to the set regulations. One of this is that she acts on a probable cause that can be supported since she identifies the young man acting in a funny way with some of the mannerisms that suggest drug dealings and walking in a street corner, which is said to be lonely. A crime should be considered as a crime hence the lack of need to classify crimes into petty and major categories. The crime victim may be a habitual criminal. In addition, it is ethical to consider the health of the criminal who puts his life at risk with the use of such hard drugs as crack cocaine. There should be other police officers to be able to provide backup during the burglary incident as she goes ahead and completes the new acquired task during her patrol. References Pollock, M. J. (2012). Ethical dilemmas and decisions in criminal justice. Belmont, CA : Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Read More