¶ … professions promote illegal conduct, and which attributes should inhibit it? Professions such as law and medicine are enclosed vocations which set barriers to entry through educational requirements and other constraints. Members of the profession are subjected to additional ethical standards above and beyond that of the ordinary public. These standards are usually set by outside entities, such as professional associations as the AMA (American Medical Association), ABA (American Bar Association), and the various ethics committees of universities. It is perfectly possible for certain behaviors not to be illegal but to be unethical, and to result in the expulsion of the professional from such an association. This type of ethical scrupulousness by outside bodies should ideally promote more ethical behavior.

However, there are other aspects of membership in the professions which inhibit rather than promote ethical behavior. The inclusiveness of the professions can create a sense of needing to 'protect one's own' in the face of accusations. A doctor's association might be more sympathetic to physicians accused of malpractice than to the patients. Also, there are behaviors that might not be considered against the tenants of the profession, even though a layperson might be repulsed by them, such as a lawyer defending a client he or she knows is guilty or a doctor creating a control group in a medical experiment that does not benefit from a potentially healing new drug.

Membership in professions also gives professionals additional means and opportunities to act in...

If someone in a retail situation gives a customer the wrong order, the consequences are minor and can be easily rectified. If a doctor makes a mistake, the consequences can be fatal. If the professional acts in a way that is damaging to the reputation of the profession, this can also violate the trust necessary for all professionals to be functional. Whenever a psychiatrist is publically revealed to be manipulating a client, for example, the entire public often is more suspicious of the therapeutic relationship.
Q2. What do medical crime, legal crime, academic crime, and religious crime, as defined in this text, have in common, and how do they differ?

All of these forms of crime are a violation of the trust that the client places in the hands of a professional to do his or her job without a goal of self-enrichment. In all such crimes, the professional takes advantage of the position in an unethical fashion. There is some overlap in these crimes. For example, a physician might manipulate the results of a research study, just like an academic, or plagiarize the information used in the study without attributing the source. All criminals may take advantage of their position to sexually intimidate clients or engage in improper relationships with the clients. On a less salacious level, members of all of these professions may misrepresent or exaggerate their credentials to clients to gain work.

However, there are also some differences. In the case of medical crimes, serious injuries can be incurred by the…