The Role Ethics Plays for Correctional and Treatment Staff in Prisons - Assignment Example

Ethics The Role Ethics Plays for Both Correctional and Treatment Staff in American Prisons Ethics refers to the philosophical study of morality. It also refers to the study of the principles that justify moral standards. Criminal ethics justice refers to the study of whether and how criminal justice is moral and what specific moral standards apply to criminal justice agents. Morals define which behaviors are good. Laws on the other hand define which behaviors are punishable. Prisons play the role of correction as well as punishing those who have broken the law. Offenders should be punished because they deserve to be after breaking the law. By punishing them, balance is restored in the society. Von Hirsch’s utilitarian justification claims that although punishment causes human suffering, it is good in preventing similar suffering in the future. Ethics plays an important role in correctional and treatment staff to define what should be done to the prisoners and the treatment that they should be given. The prisoners have their rights and so the staff working in the prisons have to adhere to the law that defines how that should be done. As indicated earlier ethics refers to the specific moral standards. The staff has to ensure that the prisoners have access to the basic standards of care. These include access to adequate food, shelter and something to wear. They should also have access to primary medical and psychiatric care. The staff should also uphold anti-bullying programs without favor or fear. Re-integration skills are offered in the prisons to help the prisoners become important when they rejoin their members after their term in jail. The staff should also ensure that all the prisoners are subscribe to the programs that are ongoing to help them become important people in the society after their term. Correction officers should not be allowed to abuse power. They should be allowed limited authority to ensure that they are also answerable and accountable for their actions. Mutual respect, tolerance and understanding should always prevail among the inmates and the corrective officers. Correction officers should always maintain the professional gap and should involve themselves in issues and relationships that compromise the integrity of their roles and duties. Corrupt practices by the prison staff undermines and neutralizes the administration of justice and destroy public confidence in the system. The correction officers should therefore uphold the ethics that govern their roles. In a bid to restore and maintain ethics in the staff that is working within the prison institution, the management at times uses various methods to screen and ensure that the correction officers are not abusing their power. There are various reasons why ethics should be maintained in such a set up. First it ensures that the prisoners are living in peace and cases such as bullying are discouraged. Bullying and intimidation of minor and new inmates is common in various prisons and so it should be discouraged. The correction staff often use the power given to them to punish the inmates irregularly. The US constitution categorically states the rights of the prisoners that should be observed. Cases of abuse of power should be punished and the officers made to account for them. Correctional staff are often faced by ethical issues in their work. For instance, at times they know that the inmates may not be punished by the law and so they have to consider whether to do it themselves. On top of that, they at times have to decide whether to punish some inmates who have changed and adopted better living styles. The treatment staff is also faced by ethical issues. This can be in deciding when and on what kind of treatment the prisoners should get. At times, one may be weighing between the law and whether to give the prisoners the treatment they need. The ethical issues while dealing with the inmates can be in terms of the relationships that one has to maintain with them and maintaining a professional gap between the inmates and the staff. Ethics of the Death Penalty The history of death sentence in the US dates back to 1608 when Captain George was executed by firing after being found guilty of spying for the government of Spain. In the 20t century various developments have been made on it. The early years in the 20th century saw six states completely outlawing death penalty. This happened between 1907 and 1917. However, by 1920, five of the states had reinstated death penalty due to the increase in the number of felonies being committed in the region. The use of cyanide in execution was adopted in 1924 as a more painless way of executing the criminals. This was done in Nevada. The number of executions dropped in the 1950s as many people came up questioning the need for the death penalties in correcting the individuals. In 1958, the Eighth Amendment declared death penalty illegal by the US laws. The ten years that followed saw hot contention between the Supreme Court judges and other judges as they tried to determine serious cases that involved death penalties. In 1977, Gary Gilmore was executed and this marked a turning point as Oklahoma adopted the use of lethal dose in executing its criminals for various felonies. In 1986, the US Supreme Court decided that the execution of insane criminals was unconstitutional. Two years later the execution of teenagers below 16 years was deemed unconstitutional. In 1994, former president Bill Clinton signs the Crime Bill that expanded the federal death penalty. The last execution by the use of a gas chamber was done in 1999. Death penalty or capital punishment has been discouraged by various civil rights activists on the basis of its ethical importance and acceptability in the society. It is ironical that a state discourages murder of its citizens through its laws yet goes ahead to claim the life of one of its citizens using the same law. In execution of the law the judge is often faced with the ethical dilemma of executing a suspect due to the morality of the act. Capital punishment denies the criminal the chance to be rehabilitated and corrected to adopt a better living with the people. On the other hand, death penalty is advocated for to ensure that one person does not infringe on the rights of others using his constitutional rights (Kramer, 2014). For instance if a person is declared a threat to the society maybe after being found guilty of murder death penalty is the best judgement to prevent him from doing similar acts in the future. In the case study given, there is no DNA evidence linking the man to the crime. Therefore he cannot be directly linked to the crime. However, the following processes can be used to determine whether death penalty would be considered. The first step would be reviewing all the facts that have been presented before the court. The second step would be to evaluate the admissibility of the evidence and whether it is enough to be used against the suspect. If enough evidence is produced, since DNA evidence is not the sole type of evidence that can be used in such a case then the law applies in making the judgement. Such a judgement requires consultations with other judges and so it is important to consider their decisions. Reference Kramer, Mathew. The Ethics of Capital Punishment: A Philosophical Investigation of Evil. Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2014. Print. Read More