Ethical leadership in criminal justice systems

Leadership and Ethical Practice in Criminal Justice Agencies

According to Wright (1999), leadership is an essential part of a criminal justice agency, and the key to that leadership is ethics. Without proper ethical standards on a personal level, an individual would not be a good choice for criminal justice. When that person is put into a leadership role, he or she then has to focus on not only personal ethical standards, but standards of ethics that are fitting to the entire department or agency. These standards may not be identical to what would be seen personally, but they must be adhered to regardless. Additionally, when a person is focused on being an ethical leader, he or she holds others to that same ethical standard, and that can keep employees on the right path in any organization. This is especially vital for criminal justice agencies, because they are expected to be highly ethical in nature and avoid anything that could be questionable (Wright, 1999). If they fail to address proper ethics, they open the door to risks and problems that should never be a part of what they are doing or the people who work for them.

Wright (1999) understood the value of ethical leadership from the standpoint of criminal justice agencies. When an agency allows ethics to slide, it is essentially indicating to others that it does not take its responsibilities to the public seriously (Wright, 1999). In order to protect and serve, and in order to take care of the people who trust in and rely on the agency to keep them safe from harm, all criminal justice agencies have to uphold ethical standards that are higher than what would be seen in the rest of society. The leaders of those agencies are the ones who will be looked to when determining whether those standards are being upheld and how important they are, which is what makes the leaders so vitally significant in the agencies they are required to lead (Wright, 1999).

Other studies and articles have provided similar information when it comes to ethical leadership in criminal justice agencies and its significance. Bottoms & Tankebe (2012), for example, focused their study on a dialogic approach to the legitimacy of criminal justice, because they recognized the value of moving beyond simple procedures when it comes to justice. Much of justice is procedural in nature, but that does not mean there is nothing else that should be considered and addressed. The procedures are there to provide minimum standards that have to be met, and to ensure that everything that has to be handled from the standpoint of following the law is dealt with properly (Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012). However, there is more to a criminal justice agency and what it stands for and represents than just procedural issues that are followed to the letter (Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012). That is only a part of the law, and only a part of what criminal justice workers should consider or focus on.