Reputable Conduct Ethical Issues in Policing and Corrections

by Jones, John R., M.Ed., Ph.D.; Carlson, Daniel P.

• ISBN13: 9780131123335
• ISBN10: 0131123335
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780130286208, 9780131234819
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-06-03
• Publisher: Pearson
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

Why did a law enforcement officer in a large metropolitan police department brutalize a suspect? Why did it take several days for his colleagues to admit witnessing the event? Such questions lead officers to ponder their moral duties and obligation, known generally as ethical considerations as they relate to the law enforcement profession. Some of the hardest decisions law enforcement officers make during their careers involve ethical issues. As a result, the actions taken to resolve these issues play a vital role in defining officers throughout their careers. Reputable Conduct, Second Edition is intended to be a friendly and easy-to-read introduction to the difficult and sometimes peculiar ethical demands of the professions of policing and corrections.

Author Biography

John Jones. Dr. John Jones has worked for more than 30 years in the human development field, as minister, hospital chaplain, youth leader, correctional officer, high school teacher, probation officer, and correctional institution administrator. During the last 21 years he has worked as an administrator and professor in the Law and Justice Centre at a Canadian college of applied arts and technology, where he has enjoyed teaching ethics to justice students.

John has also been active in training and consulting in the justice field. He has trained several thousand participants in Ethics in the Workplace, Team Development with an Ethical Twist, and Hostage Survival Skills. He is considered to be a caring, compassionate, humorous, and skilled facilitator, seminar leader and speaker. He has also been called in court as an expert witness on the subject of officer subculture.

John holds a joint honors bachelor of arts degree in psychology and philosophy from the University of Wales, Cardiff; a master of education degree from the University of Toronto (The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education); and a doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Toronto. John is the author of Ethics for Career and Personal Success, published by Pearson Education Canada (2001).

John has lived and worked in Great Britain, Jamaica, Australia, and Canada. He is married with three children.

Dan Carlson. During the course of a law enforcement career that began in 1967, Dan Carlson worked for several years as a police patrolman and then a deputy sheriff before joining the New York State Police. After 21 years of full-time law enforcement service, he retired from the state police at the rank of captain—assistant director of training and moved fully into the field of training and education. Dan managed a regional police academy in the state of Texas, formed a private management consulting and training organization, and in 1992 was selected to guide the formation and development of the Center for Law Enforcement Ethics, the first organization of its kind in the United States.

Dan has presented ethics training programs for criminal justice organizations across the United States and Canada and has been a regular guest speaker before law enforcement groups across North America. Widely published in the areas of ethics and management, Dan has authored more than two dozen articles for a range of professional journals. He graduated from the State University of New York and was the 1985 recipient of the George Searle Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement Training. Dan has served on the ethics committees of both the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He is the author of When Cultures Clash: The Troubled Nature of Police—Community Relations and Suggestions for Improvement, published by Prentice Hall (2001).

Dan and his wife, Bonnie, reside in Texas, only a short drive from their three children and five grandchildren.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Ideas

The Ethics of Teaching Ethics in Justice Programs

The Role of the Ethics Educator: The Lurking Dangers of Indoctrination

Subculture and the Individual Officer

Subculture: What the Practitioners Think

Tough Decisions

Tools for Moral Decision Making

Where Do You Stand?

Reputable Officers

References

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Written for students in college criminal justice programs, and for police and correctional officers in training,Reputable Conducthas been designed as a working text rather than a reference book. And while this work combines Dr. Jones's 21 years of experience teaching ethics with Mr. Carlson's 35 years as a law enforcement practitioner and instructor, both acknowledge having been well taught by their many students and colleagues during that time. By design, the writing style and tone of this book are very personal, for as we wrote it, we imagined our students listening in.Reputable Conductis intended to be a friendly and easy-to-read introduction to the difficult and sometimes peculiar ethical demands of the professions of policing and corrections. It addresses some of the characteristics of these roles, with particular emphasis on subcultural constraints and how loyalty to our colleague group can sometimes cause us to sacrifice our individuality. How these constraints may affect the moral decision making of an officer is looked at in detail in Chapters 5, 6, and 7.One unusual feature of the book is the discussion in Chapter 4, which encourages the student to think about the role of the ethics educator. The discussion has been included so that the educator's role can be more clearly understood by the student. I hope this will reduce the possibility of misunderstanding arising between teacher and student regarding the purpose of an ethics course.Tools that may be helpful for resolving moral dilemmas are discussed in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 includes several case studies to give students an opportunity to practice using these tools.Some of the material in the book could be described as sensitive--even controversial--in nature. To gain maximum benefit from the experience of working through the book, students are encouraged to consider with an open mind the readings and the Reflections, which are searching questions interspersed throughout each chapter and based on the preceding content. This will require a degree of maturity and discipline.Reputable Conductis designed to provide students with a vehicle to promote private thought and class discussion about issues that--from what I have been told by my students and many practitioners over the years--are important to the vital roles played in our society by police and corrections officers.If such thinking and discussion contribute, even in some small way, to justice continuing to be served, and to the individual officer's sense of well-being being enhanced, then the effort on all our parts will have been justified.