Ethical and Moral Behavior and

¶ … ethical and moral behavior and why such behaviors are necessary in the enforcement of the rules of the criminal justice system Relationships of Criminal justice system, ethics and morality The principles of criminal justice lead to acts which are similar to crime in content, and a distinction can be made with crime only if it is understood that criminal justice is moral while crime is immoral. This question has been asked from ancient times and even Saint Augustine had stated that without justice, kingdoms are only great robberies.

Thus there is a use of force by both the state which is enforcing justice and the criminal who is committing the crime. The only distinction of the two uses of force is that the use of force by the state is moral while the use of force by the criminal is immoral. (Overview of Ethics & Moral Reasoning) Again, the concept of morality in this is directly linked to a use of force which is acceptable or justifiable.

This justification has to come from our reasoning and that is what differentiates between right and the might of the criminal. Thus the concept of morality used here does not have to be only in terms of a morality that is accepted by humans due to other reasons, but also can be shown to be acceptable. The method for showing the acceptability has to be through rational and hence logical arguments. The other element involved here is ethics, and that takes us to find out the definition of ethics.

The use of morality tells us of the standards of rightness and goodness through which we judge human behavior. Certain standards are accepted for use there and those are non-malevolence, tolerance and truthfulness. The difference with ethics from morality is that ethics is the philosophy which lies behind morality; it is a philosophical study of morality and it gives us the principles of morality that has to be applied to that particular case.

Thus ethics differs from morality due to a difference in occupations of the user - there are legal ethics and medical ethics. At the same time we do not talk about legal morality or medical morality. In the case of criminal justice, the study is essentially whether criminal justice is moral and this is to determine the ethics of the occupation of criminal justice practitioner and thus the study can be named as criminal justice ethics.

The entire process is a study in philosophy and the object is to understand and find justification for the moral standards that are used by the various users or practitioners within the criminal justice system. The moral standards of those individuals have to be justified in the course of criminal justice ethics. What are morals and moral behavior? The matter to be judged in morality is not the acceptable standards of acceptable behavior by individuals; rather it is the rationally justifiable standards of behavior.

This is the reason why individuals provide justifications for their actions - they want to show that the actions were not simply a result of self-interest or even selfish actions. This gives the feeling that morality provides us all a neutral standard, and the person offering moral justification is appealing to the universal principles of moral goodness. The assumption is that all humans understand the principles of moral goodness.

This gives us the clear concept that morality is not a private matter of individuals, but a matter that can be easily understood by all humans. This also makes it clear that for morality to reach that level then it is clear that morality has to be educated or told to all human beings.

Without knowing what morality is how will they accept moral justifications and moral standards of behavior? (Overview of Ethics & Moral Reasoning) This is one of the ways to make all humans sane and mature and thus responsible for their actions. This also assumes that once individuals know what morality is, they will feel that morality is good for them and others. This again implies that certain standards of behavior are moral behavior, while other types of behavior are not.

This has not defined moral standards for any occupation, or behavior related to the occupation. At the same time, it is expected that moral standards will be good for all humans, and neutral among them. This feeling will also be understood by the people that the behavior is moral - at least by the persons who know what morality is. This is the part of morality that is accepted by philosophers and one of them, Kurt Baier has said about morality that morality is good for all individuals alike.

It has to be understood that morality is neutral and good for all, and not any specific group. Overview of Ethics & Moral Reasoning) Morality of law While we have talked about morality, and accepted that one of the jobs of criminal justice should be to protect morality. On the other hand, the strength of criminal justice system is in the laws and those exist basically to enforce order more than moral values, and the moral values also change from society to society.

There is the question of what should be a crime and related defense for insanity. In a society with a majority of Muslims, the practice is that everybody goes for their prayers or namaz five times a day. If a person does not observe it he is not a true Muslim, but the insane person does not do it and he is still excused.

During certain periods of the year, they are not supposed to eat or drink for as long as the sun is up, and this is enforced on even non-Muslims in states controlled by Muslims. Yet again, an insane person is not bound by it. Whether the laws are correct or ethical in themselves are open to doubt, but they are certainly the opinion of the rulers and the laws are enforced, yet the laws are not enforced against insane individuals.

Thus the question remains whether morality is different from law or different for insane individuals. (Morality of Law Overview) Another view of law is that it does not have any morality attached to it, but the resulting compulsions from law give certain benefits to the citizens within the country. These are in the form of peace, predictability and security, and that is the reason why citizens obey laws. The state in turn completes its part of the bargain by protecting citizens who obey the law.

This is a type of a bargain, and there are instances when one of the sides is not able to keep their side of it. In certain areas of New York City, there are many incidences that occur which are against the laws, and when even ordinary citizens see them, then they also start disobeying the law. This is where probably custom is taking precedence over law. (Morality of Law Overview) The behavior of the criminals is also a question that is raised regarding the significance of morality.

Generally criminals disobey law to satisfy some personal desires of his personal self. If it is viewed that he committed the act as he did not know what the law was, then the crime is from ignorance, and should thus be attracting only a symbolic penalty. On the other side, if he was aware of the law and still decided to commit the crime, then it is clear that he did some act against what he should have done.

This is again a difficult action to blame as long as he is a part of society and the laws are a part of the society's morals. Would it be then correct to say that laws are a part of the society's morals? There are also people who attempt to commit crimes and fail because of various extraneous reasons, and then the guilt in the crime is viewed based on the intent.

(Morality of Law Overview) The actual morality of the incident puts him under blame, but the action in itself has not caused any harm. So has the law decided to become the moral policeman? There are many such incidences where the question of morality of laws are open to doubt and should be thought over. The problem is that morality is not a part of any religion, but it is a general behavior that humans are expected to stick to.

To repeat the statement made earlier, "morality is good for all individuals alike." What are ethics and ethical behavior? As mentioned earlier, ethics is concerned with a profession, and are also sometimes viewed as obligations related to that job. The individual concerned may be engaged in any profession including one in criminal justice, like being a police officer. At the same time, due to their occupations many professions provide individuals with a lot of power over the lives of other individuals.

Ethics for the profession which are outlined mention clearly how the individuals have to use this power. The published codes of ethics for different professions try to make it clear that "professional" in that occupation will not misuse that power, and especially that the use will not be made for personal gain. Of course, in totality, the codes of ethics should provide guidance about the values to be upheld in the profession, specific ethical principles and specific standards.

(Professional code of Ethics) Since there is a wide variation in codes for different professions, it is required that codes from some professions be looked at to decide the ethical standards of a profession. However, studying ethical codes does not mean that the individual will be following the codes and behaving in an ethical manner.

This is mentioned clearly in the code for National Association of Social Work as "a code of ethics cannot resolve all ethical issues or disputes or capture the richness and complexity involved in striving to make responsible choices within a moral community.

Rather, a code of ethics sets forth values, ethical principles, and ethical standards to which professionals aspire and by which their actions can be judged." (Professional code of Ethics) Similarly, the American Psychological Association says "The development of a dynamic set of ethical standards for a psychologist's work-related conduct requires a personal commitment to a lifelong effort to act ethically; to encourage ethical behavior by students, supervisees, employees, and colleagues, as appropriate; and to consult with others, as needed, concerning ethical problems." (Professional code of Ethics) In general, ethical principles are the foundation that form the basis for deciding that an individual has not lived up to the ethics of the profession.

Practically all ethical codes have a general ethical principle against non-exploitation, and this is made clear in the ethical codes of the Psychologists Association which state clearly that therapists should not enter into sexual relationships with former therapy patients for a period of two years after the end of treatment, and that also should be only under a specific set of situations.

There is a proposed code for American Society of Criminology and that says "Ethical standards are not simply determined by whether an action is legally actionable; behavior that is technically legal may still be unethical." (Professional code of Ethics) This makes it clear that ethics are probably stronger obligations or more rigid performance standards than the requirements that have been specified as per law.

Moral questions in criminal justice The field of criminal justice is now close to become a field in which there is now almost agreement about all matters of right and wrong. Thus one can say that a situation has now come where practically all concerned with criminal justice are now in almost total agreement about the profession and the course that it will follow.

There are also claims from different quarters that criminal justice has a base that all citizens of the country feel obligated to follow the rules and are not always forced to follow the rules. This is due to the feeling of obligation that comes to the people from being the rules of criminal justice being viewed as essential for the society to grow and develop.

The force behind the obligation is due to public trust that stands behind criminal law, and there is not much of external power that makes people obliged to follow the law. Yet, in the concept of humans, law is not the same as morality, and even the concept of morality varies to a large extent from one person to another.

There are very few individuals who have gone through courses in morality to learn what it is, but the knowledge comes from the behavior of their parents, the society around them and their experiences with life. Since law is not the same as morality there are disagreements, diversity and ethical plurality among the individuals in any society, and that is probably the flavor of life. After all if one knew how another person would react to any given situation, then he would have no surprises, or learning to go through.

Any criminal system has to incorporate all the elements of thinking within the country, and that is the reason why the laws of different countries vary, even though they may have the same cultural origin. There are no systems that can be imposed on a country and all the systems have to be accepted by the people. Thus one has to agree that there are different demands for different laws within a country from the different groups. This is a challenge to all individuals within the criminal justice system.

(An Overview of Morality and ethical systems) As an example let us take a simple question of the laws concerning carrying arms. In England the laws are substantially different from the laws in United States, and there are also different laws in Canada. There are no rights and wrongs about the whole issue, and the laws have been framed by the people of the country who felt that they required a certain set of laws.

This has happened in spite of the fact that the populations of the three countries are all originating in the main from England. The differences of criminal laws have come due to differences in living conditions in the society at certain stages and the population patterns. Another reason is probably the feelings of the people in morality, and one can see this difference in matters of other issues like religion, acceptance of behavior within the society, etc.

Thus the issues of morality, so far as the formation of laws are concerned are not static, but keep shifting and the shift depends on the shift of minds of people. Knowledge changes with time and with that change the concepts of laws. There are now a large number of laws regarding software which did not exist even twenty years ago. While one accepts that most of those laws concern the business and other purposes, yet they also require a moral understanding.

Are their clear cut understandings of morality in that regard? There is a lot of recording of music on the Internet. Is that ethically or morally correct? At the same time, any authority tries to make sure that it is obeyed and this is not always because they feel that they have a moral obligation to follow the rules. Most of them obey rules as they feel it is their obligation to society.

Whenever there is talk of one particular law, it is thought to be useful by every citizen as the citizen finds out an item that is being protected for him by that law. (An Overview of Morality and ethical systems) It is not really that the protection lasts indefinitely; there are various ways in which the experts on law can get around the protection. This we shall see in the next section.

Again in terms of punishment, there are punishments that are decided by law, and the punishments also should be acceptable to all citizens. That does not happen as we can see the award of punishment by authorities change with time. This brings up the obvious question as to whether morality or ethicality changes with time. Thus even making criminal justice as the final decider of punishment is also a challenge to the system. There is also a requirement of social justice from criminal justice.

Yet the capacities of criminal justice limit it to the society that it protects. If there is injustice within a society then criminal justice cannot do anything much. But if there is a lot of social and economic injustice then the job of criminal justice will be nothing much more than a system which is trying to clean up the system but it cannot rectify the defects that are coming out of the social injustice.

(An Overview of Morality and ethical systems) An example of this can be seen in England now where there are a lot of incidents of bomb explosions from a minority group. In spite of being in Britain for long periods, that group obviously do not identify themselves with the rest of the other members of the society.

This is happening because of the social system which does not give them the position they feel they deserve, and thus they do not feel any remorse for their actions, and continue doing it. After all there has been a tradition of the 'whites' feeling that they are superior to 'blacks'. This is built up in the minds and the difference that is caused is not easy to remove. The concept of justice is giving all persons a fair and moral treatment.

(Justice) In other words this is a continuous effort to do what is viewed as correct, and this feeling of correct has to be determined through a process that takes into account the feelings of all members of the society and not the judgment of the majority or the most powerful component. The situation is now appearing also in United States as the subordinated groups put together -- Blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc. is now approaching the total numbers of whites.

The difference between right and wrong The situation today is that all powerful groups in society refuse to follow any moral or even ethical principles. This information now spreads very rapidly through the advances media systems, and even other members of the society, who were previously following moral principles or thinking them to be ideal, are moving away from that. Thus, loosely speaking, one can say that the hold of God over the people of the earth is becoming ineffective.

Let us first talk about management students in the most famous place, Harvard. There had been a case study for discussion and it was about Braniff, then an airline going into bankruptcy. The case was about a customer who wanted to buy a large number of tickets at a subsequent date, but before buying the tickets he wanted to be sure that the airline would be flying at that time. The question traveled up the line and the chief executive said that he was not sure.

The question was whether the executive was right in giving that reply. According to students the reply.