University of Miami Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice System PPT Please create a powerpoint and formal outline about this paper The objective of this assi

University of Miami Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice System PPT Please create a powerpoint and formal outline about this paper The objective of this assignment is to present this paper Please put little information on the slide and what I am going to say in the notesThe slides must follow the 6×6 rule Please Avoid plagiarism and use simple grammar as Eng Running head: [SHORTENED TITLE UP TO 50 CHARACTERS]
Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice
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Table of Contents
Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice ………………………………………………………………………. 1
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Criminal Justice System……………………………………………………………………………………. 4
Overview …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4
Functions …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Ethics & Ethical Practices ……………………………………………………………………………… 5
Ethical Issues ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
The Police Off-Duty Life ………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Overview …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Historical Background ………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Ethics of Police Off-Duty Life ……………………………………………………………………… 10
Major Ethical Issues Relating To Police Off-Duty Life ………………………………………. 11
Overview …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11
Professionalism ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 11
Using Police Resources……………………………………………………………………………….. 13
Reaction to Crime ………………………………………………………………………………………. 14
Effective Solutions of the Ethical Issues …………………………………………………………… 15
Ethical laws training and education ………………………………………………………………. 15
Changing Laws Governing Off Duty Police Life ……………………………………………. 16
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Setting high standards of ethical practices ……………………………………………………… 17
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 18
References …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 19
Introduction
The development of intense debates arises in dealing with ethical issues in criminology,
making individuals’ experience a difficult time choosing the most effective actions. The nature of
crimes and their dynamics keeps changing each day, making the current ethical policies become
irrelevant or need modification to help deal with the issue sufficiently. For example, the
relationship between members of the same sex was prohibited in the early 20th century up to the
early 21st century, but it is now legal arising ethical issues relating to it. Also, the relationship of
police officers was different in the 20th century, with current policies overseeing or controlling
their functionality to enhance peace and harmony in society. Therefore, the criminal justice
system is responsible for ensuring that the deal with the developing changes that can cause the
development of ethical issues through research, collection of data, analyzation, and interpretation
(Braswell et al., 2017). The criminal justice system has played a critical role in dealing with
ethical issues within its network in American society for many years to enhance peaceful and
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healthy interaction among Americans. However, the different departments of the criminal justice
system still face ethical issues that need to be solved. Illustration of some of the ethical issues
that arise in defining the life of police officers while they are on duty and off duty and using
some moral justice theory to overcome them can help provides an insight into how different
criminal justice departments can overcome ethical issues in their specific field of operation.
Criminal Justice System
Overview
The criminal justice system is comprised of many government institutions and agencies
dealing with issues of crimes or violation of the set rules and standards in society. The criminal
justice systems act according to the set rules and limitations to impose penalties, fines, or
movement regulation of individuals in the community to control crime and enhance the positive
relationship in society. There are five main components of the criminal justice systems, law
enforcement, the public prosecutor, judiciary, community, and correctional institutions (Braswell
et al., 2017). Therefore, it involves institutions like the police departments, court systems, law
firms, and prisons, among others. Each of the parties or institutions is responsible for fulfilling
specific responsibilities and has different issues and structures. Also, the criminal justice system
varies across different countries based on the governmental structure, constitutional laws, and
distribution of power. Failures or limitations of a specific institution like the police or prison will
undermine the quality of the criminal justice system. For example, the criminal justice system of
the United States is divided into sub-divisions according to the federals, states, and the military,
each having separate criminal justice system structures for the adults and juveniles (McKinney,
2020).
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Functions
The primary purpose of the criminal justice system is to minimize the rate of crimes in
society, protect the vulnerable people in society, and enhance health and positive relationship
among members and institutions in a society. The criminal justice systems facilitate justice for
all parties in the community through identification of lawbreakers, individuals or institutions, and
providing appropriate punishment based on the laws they break or violate to help stop offensive
or unlawful activities harming the wellbeing of others and protecting the law-abiding citizens
(Bohm & Haley, 2017). Each of the components or branches of the criminal justice system has
its specific roles to play towards achieving the above responsibilities, which contributes to the
overall efficiency of the criminal justice system. For example, the police are responsible for
enforcing public order, prevention of crimes, detecting crimes, enforcing laws, and doing
investigations of criminal activities to arrest those that break or violate them according to the set
laws of the specific state. The court system introduces the defendants and prosecutors to provide
evidence and arguments on the extent of the law violated by the individuals arrested according to
in-depth analysis of the laws relating to the specific case, determine whether they are guilty or
innocent and if guilty provide sufficient punishment to compensate the dame caused by fines,
rehabilitation, or jail time among others. Therefore, if the police department does not work
efficiently, it will limit the efficiency of the court systems and vise-versa (Cocklin, Paladin
House Publishers, & United States of America, 1977).
Ethics & Ethical Practices
Ethics plays a vital role in defining the efficiency of any criminal justice system. Ethics is
the principles or values that help determine what is wrong or good in the society based on the set
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standards, interpersonal beliefs and values, and cultural beliefs and values. Ethics govern and
provide guidelines of how a criminal justice system should conduct themselves as professionals
as well as how they should play their roles in promoting the efficiency of the criminal justice
system. A criminal justice system without ethical values and standards can have little impact on
fulfilling its responsibilities (Bohm & Haley, 2017). The ethical standards govern individuals and
institutions in how they conduct themselves, their relationship with society, decision making, and
usage of public resources and power. That is why the criminal justice systems have unique sets
of ethical standards from the rest of society and institutes. Each of the components in the
criminal justice system requires efficient ethics and ethical standards. Ethics in criminal justice
are central in issues relating to decisions of force, discretion, and due processes. Therefore an indepth understanding of the ethical issues, theories, and concepts helps in acquiring analytical
skills and the reasoning abilities critical in making sound decisions on the judgment of whether
something is wrong or right. In the case of criminal justice, ethical skills will enable them to
effectively and accurately judge a situation to determine the moral consequences of the actions
(Belshaw & Johnstone, 2015).
There are many ethical/moral theories and concepts that criminal justice uses to enhance
the functions of criminal justice systems. An example of ethics that is applied in criminal justice
is normative ethics. Normative ethics considers the conduct of a person based on the
consideration of moral issues, thus requiring a person to utilize ethical reasoning so as they can
act morally. Normative ethics are categorized as ethical relativism, ethical absolutism, and
ethical pluralism. Ethical relativism argues that the purity of action varies in fundamental ways
of individuals, communities, cultures, and laws, thus helps keep an open mind on changing the
variability of ethical standards according to societies. Ethical absolutism argues that there is an
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immutable moral law determining the morality of action of all people no matter the time or
place; thus can be sufficient in solving issues like capital punishment that have two different
viewpoints. Ethical pluralism states that in an institution, there are many truths rather than a
single truth, thus useful in solving situations or conflicts between different moral standards. The
other ethical theories are meta-ethics, applied, and professional ethics. Therefore, the ethics and
ethical standards are very critical in proving multiple viewpoints in criminal justice and making
decisions on the best course of action that is fair to all parties involved (Kaptein & Wempe,
2011).
Ethical Issues
Application of ethics and ethical standards in criminal justice systems can easily result in
ethical dilemmas and issues that might undermine the decision-making process in criminal
justice systems. The process of comparing ethics with the set rules and laws can develop
significant gaps and problems that are different, thus causing significant problems in making
sound decisions in the best course of action (Bohm & Haley, 2017). For example, an ethical
theory or concept can say that a specific action is morally right, but according to the state laws,
the action is wrong. That is why there are many ethical issues in criminal justice systems. In the
process of analyzing the relationship of the criminal justice system, society, and state laws their
arise conflicts in their beliefs, policies, and values. However, through expertise in analytical
skills of ethics, and using criminology ethical theories of crimes, individuals or institutions can
overcome their problems.
For example, in police departments, there are always issues relating to the off-duty life of
the police officers that raises a lot of ethical problems. The objective of the research is to
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investigate the ethical issues that face police officers regarding their off-duty life and the
effective solutions for overcoming them.
The Police Off-Duty Life
Overview
Police officers play a critical role in the criminal justice system because they help enforce
the different laws, monitor, detect and arrest, investigate, and cite laws in society. Police are
responsible for making ethical decisions of arresting a person based on the evidence and
following state laws thus puts them in a many situations of encountering many ethical issues
relating to misusing authority or resources, special treatments, incivility, rudeness, malfeasance,
sexual, racial, or ethnic harassment, and inadequate performance among many others. The ethical
issues become even worse when determining the off-duty life of police officers because they got
to live normally with the civilians that they are supposed to protect or arrest if they commit
crimes. For instance, does a police officer have the rights to arrest a person while they are off
duty or engage in a criminal investigation?
Historical Background
Police off-duty life means that even though a police officer maintains specific powers,
they are also deprived of other powers. For example, off duty police officers can arrest, use
force, get other jobs, shoot while they are off duty, but cannot carrying police guns unless they
have a personal license of carrying weapons. The history of police off duty life can provide the
ethical issues that surround them. In the19th century the role of police officers, whether off-duty
or on-duty, depended on who was asking because there as no permanent and central police
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system in the United States. For example, the military was responsible for public order in the
South, Carolina states had slave patrols, and in Boston, it was an organized police force. The
police acted as tax collectors and personal bodyguards of the politicians and business
organizations. It was until 1929 that the police system was made independent of the political
issues and made it separate professionalism with different laws and guidelines to govern it in
helping maintain peace and order for the public. Therefore, the police system is less than a
century, and the modifications and changes are still happening up to date (Waxman, 2017).
Therefore, the history of off duty police officers is older than the police system. It means
that the laws to monitor the police system were not included in the constitutions but were added
later. There have been many laws and policies to help clarify the powers of police officers in
active duty and those that are off duty. An official off duty police service was established in 2002
to address the main issues facing off duty police officers (Rowley). The central organization’s
focus was providing personal security that meets customer’s needs and holding off duty police
officers accountable for delivering the highest standard of work ethics while treating them with
dignity and respect (Rowley). In 2006, another off duty organization, Athos, was established to
help define the life of off duty police officers and was named the fasted growing security service
company in 2014 and 2015. According to the platform, the services that it offers are traffic
control, protest management & strikes, disaster response, and On-Site Security for High Risk &
High Profile Locationsamong others. The organization believes that their securities are better
because off duty officers have licensees, professional training, authority, armed, response time,
power to make arrests, and traffic control skills, among others (Athos). The significant issues
that the security organizations address regarding the off duty officers are personal liability issues,
time-efficient payments, and unrealistic expatiations of consumers. The organization’s aim was
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addressing issues like payment processing, liability management, and vetting and supervision of
the off duty police officers. There are many other organizations that high off duty officers to
perform almost the same role as on-duty police officers. Therefore, the private sectors and
organizations have always found the services of off duties to help improve security in society.
The review of police background raises a question of how the off duty life and works of
police officers develop ethical issues?
Ethics of Police Off-Duty Life
Currently, off-duty police officers can retain their powers 24/7, meaning they can
exercise the same power when they are off duty as when they are on-duty. Off-duty police can
arrest, shoot, or use force. That means that they are also governed by the same ethical rules and
principles of on-duty police officers of protecting people and property. However, off duty
policies have no right to stop a person’s vehicle or carry their work gun. Police officers are
supposed to provide support services, prevent crimes, to respond to emergencies, and enforce
laws without bias or discrimination of any kind. They are the first destinations of complaints and
issues by citizens because there are no alternatives. Therefore, police officers have to maintain
high ethical values and policies. Otherwise, police leaders have to dismiss the police officers that
conflict with the police ethical standards and guidelines (Lofthus, 2016).
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Major Ethical Issues Relating To Police Off-Duty Life
Overview
One of the biggest downfalls in attaining an efficient criminal justice system in the
United States is the police systems because of the multiple cases and complaints reported by
citizens. Police are always under great attention of the citizens. However, the complexity of off
duty life by officers is determining if they have the same power or will receive the same state
protection priorities and benefits when finding in crime as when they would be on duty. The
reason is that officers who work in organizations have different rights and policies. While some
police officers chose to uphold their integrity, honesty, and transparency, others take advantage
of the privilege they have for personal benefits (O’Hara & Sainato, 2015). The other main ethical
issues that off duty police face are professionalism, usage of public resources and power,
reaction to certain crimes.
Professionalism
The police officer must act and professionally conduct themselves whether they are on
duty or off duty. Professionalism behaviors are a reflection and a guarantee to the public that the
training, education, and experience they received is sufficient to help them in carrying out their
duties, handle the upcoming challenges in society (Lofthus, 2016). The conditions limit the
behaviors of a police officer even when interacting with the family members. There are
companies that police work for when off duty that may conflict with police professionalism
ethics because it may require them to interact with like ordinary citizens and display high
friendliness. Additionally, police officers may face a hard time of dealing with citizens while off
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duty, especially those that have grudges with police officers. Also, there are friends and family
that may require a family to abandon the professionalism act because they want to belong (Bates
& Hertig, 2020). The reason is that police work can be very tiring, especially in societies where
crime rates are high, or there is a high rate of movements. Police may find themselves working
for many days and having only limited time to sleep, and when they are off duty, it is time they
get to spend for personal enjoyment or refreshment to interact with the society. The
professionalism codes limit them, thus, putting police officers in difficult situations of
maintaining their ethics or utilizing or using this tim…
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