Ethical Concern Related to Criminal Justice

Ethical Concerns in Criminal Justice: Police Brutality

In the field of criminal justice, it is important to be mindful of the moral or ethical problems which might arise. In a perfect world, police officers, prosecuting attorneys, judges, and juries would always act above board and with the singular interest of seeking out justice. However, this is a highly imperfect world and every society has had an incidence at some point in their history wherein someone abused their position in the process of criminal justice for their own ends. Those involved in criminal justice must be ever mindful of these past abuses and keep a watchful eye on their cohorts to ensure that the occurrence of similar unethical behaviors is kept to a minimum in the future. One of the most controversial aspects of criminal justice in recent years has been the question of police brutality and the consequences of officer's behavior in the criminal case.

Police officers are tasked with investigation and when they have found a plausible suspect it is their job to interrogate and to take the suspect into custody. In the past if a witness or suspect was not forthcoming with information, the officers could use a degree of physical force. In many police departments, this physical pressure garnered information and a suspect's admittance of responsibility although how much voracity can be placed on information received in this way must be questioned (Locke 1966,-page 605). There were unquestionably and unsurprisingly severe consequences for such actions; namely false confessions and ultimately the imprisonment and in some cases the eventual execution of innocent persons. Under this order of conduct, officers became used to being able to enlist physical force which some psychologist argue became addictive which led to further and more severe cases of police violence (Skolnick 1995,-page 46). The question of police brutality came up every now and then in the past but unless there was photographic evidence of misconduct, the accusations of the accused were not given much attention.

Due to the actions of those past officers, modern policemen and women must be wary of any action which could be classified as police brutality. In a complete reversal of the past situation, in the modern moment people are too quick to believe that the police behaved in a brutal and unnecessarily forceful way. Even in situations where a suspect is armed and shoots at police, if the officers who take down that suspect use force there is a review of their conduct to make sure that this action was the only one possible to apprehend the suspect. Everybody has a cell phone and video cameras are everywhere ready to record misconduct of any kind in any location (Krupanski 2012). Activists for civil liberties encourage this constant recording of officers as a means of ensuring that behaviors are kept in check and force only used when it is genuinely necessary.

Many accusations of police brutality have ultimately been found to be false and created for the betterment of the suspect's situation and these are the majority. However, there are still cases of genuine police brutality that occur throughout the United States. According to researchers, police force is reported in 24% of encounters between officers and suspects or witnesses (Krupanski 2012). Perhaps the most famous incidence of police brutality occurred in Los Angeles, California in 1991 when officers were filmed brutally beating Rodney King (Byers 2002). Cases have been reported in every state of the union about police misconduct to varying degrees including beating suspects, torture, and even murder. Lawyers for the defense will often use any and all errors in judgment of police officers to help their clients. Indeed some cases against defendants have been dismissed because of the actions of the police officers involved in the investigation.

Besides the obvious difficulty with the current case on which the officers are working, the issue of police brutality also has more far reaching negative consequences. The concept of police brutality undermines the whole concept of criminal justice and creates a negative attitude towards police officers. The role of the police in the United States is supposed to be that of protectorate and seeker of justice. When the police officers behave violently, it alters the perception of the police officer with the community. This is worsened by the perception of people that police officers will do whatever it takes to protect one another in accordance with the fraternity of the job. Statistically, incidences of police violence have been investigated and perpetrators punished but there were many cases wherein a cover up was discovered and those involved also punished.