Ethical Dilemmas at Corcoran State Prison - Assignment Example

 Ethical Dilemmas at Corcoran State Prison The gladiator days in the Corcoran State Prison were marked by prisoner brawls initiated by prison guards. Regrettably, the guards were charged with the responsibility of ensuring the safety of the inmates serving their sentence at the facility (Dryburgh, 2009). The guard’s omissions and commissions led to rampant cases of shooting and other acts of excessive use of force to instill discipline, activities that caused severe injuries to and deaths of inmates. The guards stationed at the facility were fond of ordering rival groups of inmates, especially those of African American and Hispanic descent to take on each other in fist fights during the one hour break in a day. The inmates spent the remaining part of the day confined in maximum security units. Rigg and Richard Caruso opted to reveal the level of prisoner abuse and killings in the facility’s Security Housing Unit, which served as the disciplinary unit, following the murder of Preston Tate in 1994. The prisoner was killed with a bullet fired at the crowd of fighting inmates by one of the guards whose intention was to stop the brawl by lethal means despite the fact that he had a non-lethal gun. The latest ‘accidental’ killing of Mr. Tate prompted Rigg and Caruso to approach the FBI with the news about the state of affairs at the facility (Dryburgh, 2009). Ethical issues There were two main ethical issues in the case study: a) whether or not to be whistle-blowers acted ethically despite the fact that the officers had a collective responsibility requiring them to speak with one voice, and b) whether the officers acted ethically by going public with the issue of prisoner abuse without exhausting the internal appeal processes within the organization. Either way, whistle-blowing was expected to soil the reputation of the organization on the one hand; and create the much-needed change on the other hand (O’Leary, 2014). Alternatives to whistle-blowing As Cooper (2012) has argued, owing to the massive negative impacts of whistle-blowing, it should be the last option whenever there are cases of wrong-doing in an organization. In this case, the guards could have explored a number of options available in an attempt to resolve the problem of prisoner abuse at the Corcoran Prison and only use whistle-blowing as the last option. The first option which the guards could have explored upon noticing the wrongdoing by their workmates was to make an informal approach to the actual misbehaving guards in an effort to find amicable solutions to the problem. However, in the real sense, this approach is normally plausible only when the situation is not grave. In light of this option, the guards in the Corcoran case were supposed to reach out to the officer who was at the control tower with lethal weapons and the ones who enjoyed inmate brawls with a view to pointing out their mistakes so as to initiate a change of their hearts (Dryburgh, 2009). Secondly, if approaching individual instigators of prisoner fights proved unconstructive or unrealistic, the guards could have approached their supervisors over the issue. This approach could have encompassed informing the federal prison bureau officers at the local level to rein in the problem of prisoner abuse by summoning concerned officers, issuing suspension, and or handing the culprits fines in an attempt to correct the situation (O’Leary, 2014). This second alternative would have yielded better outcomes considering that the supervisors were not aware of the problem at the facility due to distorted statements regarding the injury and or deaths of the inmates confined at the facility whenever they occurred. This way, the top officers would have obtained a rare glimpse of the situation and acted by carrying out internal investigation processes aimed at punishing the culprits and creating normalcy at the facility. Why the guards chose whistle-blowing As O’Leary (2014) has noted, it is only ethical to seek solutions to a collegial wrongdoing through open, candid discussions of the actual conduct of the culprits when it is practical and when the approach is expected to yield positive outcomes. The viability of such discussions is most likely to be achieved if the problem in question was still at its infancy. Full-blown problems can rarely be resolved through informal discussions. In this case, the problem of rampant incidents of guard-instigated inmate violence, maltreatment and murders had spiraled out of control in Corcoran (Dryburgh, 2009). As a result, any attempt to approach the actual perpetrators would have created the unintended impact of suspicion within the team. In addition, the two whistle-blowers could have been handed labels as ‘playing the angel’ when in the actual sense they had an ethical responsibility to stimulate a change of behavior and save the inmates from the violence. Despite the fact that an internal approach to finding solutions to the problem could have kept the image of the prison facility intact and reined in the rampant cases of misconduct, Rigg and Caruso could have faced the problem of being asked to shoulder the burden of proof. In the real sense, documenting cases of maltreatment of the prisoners by their colleagues could not have been easy considering that it would have been time consuming and sensitive (Dryburgh, 2009). The two whistle-blowers could have been faced with defamation claims based on libel and slander. It would have been difficult to fend-off charges of libel entailing harmful recorded statements circulated within the organization, which were ‘falsely’ accusing the responsible guards of ethical breaches. Owing to the fact that the whistle-blowers were ill-equipped to carry out proper investigations regarding the inmate misconduct, they would have been more vulnerable to criticism from their colleagues over ‘wild allegations’ staged against them. By seeking the intervention of the FBI, Rigg and Caruso acted impartially and ethically in an attempt to expose the problem, while providing room for the deployment of a more capable force to stem the problem. As Morales-Sánchez and Cabello-Medina (2013) have argued ethical issue of whether or not Rigg and Caruso would act ethically by exposing the problem of endangered lives of the inmates at the facility and the impacts of whistle-blowing on the organization’s operations and image was probably driven by the ethical principle of utility. By opting to go public, the general welfare of the organization and the families of the inmates was achieved in the sense that a greater level of external scrutiny of the organization after the exposure may have stimulated a higher level of safety for the inmates and saved the image of the facility in the long-term. Conclusion Generally, Rigg and Caruso were confronted with an ethical dilemma that proved hard to resolve. On the one hand, they had a duty to speak with one voice at the organizational level for the sake of the organization’s image, irrespective of the ills committed by their colleagues. On the other hand, by keeping quiet, more blood would have been shed in the hands of the brutal prison guards. Yet an effort to exhaust the internal appeal processes could not have yielded any positive outcomes because the problem was very serious and only drastic measures could resolve it. The guard’s decision to seek the services of the local FBI agents effectively provided an excellent opportunity to investigate the issue impartially so as to arrive at the most appropriate outcomes for not only the prisoners but the organization in general. Rigg and Caruso’s actions saved the lives of the inmates and served to restore the image of the facility in the long-term. References Cooper, T. L. (2012). The responsible administrator: An approach to ethics for the administrative role (6th ed.). New York, NY: Jossey-Bass. Dryburgh, M.M. (2009). Personal and Policy Implications of Whistle-Blowing: The Case of Corcoran State Prison. Public Integrity, 11(1), 155-170. Morales-Sánchez, R., & Cabello-Medina, C. (2013). The Role of Four Universal Moral Competencies in Ethical Decision-Making. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(4), 717-734. O’Leary, R. (2014). The ethics of dissent: Managing guerrilla government (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: CQ Press. Read More