In the early hours of March 3, 1991, a police chase in Los Angeles ended in an incident that would become synonymous with police brutality: the beating of a young man named Rodney King by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. An amateur video, televised nationwide, showed King lying on the ground while three officers kicked him and struck him repeatedly with their nightsticks. No one who viewed that beating will ever forget its viciousness. The Rodney King incident projected the brutal reality of police abuse into living rooms across the nation, and for a while, the problem was front page news. Political leaders condemned police use of excessive force and appointed special commissions to investigate incidents of brutality. The media covered the issue extensively, calling particular attention to the fact that police abuse was not evenly…
Ethical issues in policing reach back to the early ages of law enforcement. The profession of policing plays a vital role in the rationale and motivation of how officers conduct themselves while on and off duty. This is a primary focus point of the society in which they work, due to the society’s level of trust and confidence in the officers to act accordingly and responsibly without any negative person vengeances or vendetta. As a result of the numerous negative encounters of officers interacting with the public, which has been mainstreamed by the media, there is a heightened sense of entitlement and false responsibility of citizens to report to higher authorities or the media when they do not get whatever it is that they want or receive the…
ADJ 235 presents the ethical standards, roles, and responsibilities of criminal justice professionals and examines potential profession-specific ethical dilemmas. Ethical theories are applied to real and hypothetical scenarios in the justice system.…
Lord Acton wrote 126 years ago, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Prosecutorial misconduct is one of the leading causes, or contributing causes, of wrongful convictions. (Joy, 2006, p. 399). In the PBS video “Prosecutorial Misconduct” Brendan Sullivan, Senator Ted Stevens’ attorney states that “When prosecutors get into the heat of battle, something takes over the competitive spirit—their reputational implications—and they want to win at all costs. They then begin to think if I lose this case it will be very bad for me professionally because I’ll be known as the lawyer, the prosecutor, who lost a case that may be very visible. It seems, that eagerness to win, can tempt a prosecutor to deliberately present false testimony in their mission to convict criminals.” Whatever the motivation or reason as to why a prosecutor chooses to ignore their legal and ethical obligations to gain a conviction, does not matter. It is wrong. Especially, if it results in an innocent person going to prison and the actual criminal remains free to commit future crimes. An investigative report by USA Today identified more than 200 cases thrown out by judges as a result of misconduct or ethical violations, but only one of those offending prosecutors was…
Ethical considerations could be a concern for law enforcement officers moving forward into the future. Officers obviously have a desire to be ethical and do their job with the utmost morale possible, however the dilemmas they face to catch criminals and remain as ethical as possible is difficult. Off duty behavior, brutality, and corruption are big concerns now and for the future. People who regulate the law often find themselves needing to bend or break the law. More often than not, their fellow law enforcement officers will treat them with a lighter punishment or give no punishment at all because of their association with the governing association (Writing, 2014)…
Unlicensed prizefights and similar activities of a sporting nature where the players consent and the audience actively approves of what they see.…
Police misconduct is a big issue in the United States today. People are going to jail for misconduct by the police and are going to jail for being innocent. George Allen Jr. was innocent, and John Procter was innocent as well. The police should catch the real criminals and stop accusing people of doing something they did not do. Society should start investigating more accurately and invent better inventions to find the real culprits. People should fight the cause of police misconduct and have a better education so that they can stop this issue…
The Innocence Project is a non-profit legal organization that exonerates innocent individuals through the use of DNA testing. Moreover, they work to reform the criminal justice system in order to prevent further injustices that will occur. The United States criminal justice system is centuries years old and does not live up to the same standards as it once did. The American people are not equal. Minorities and the lower classes are not treated equally in our justice system. There have been far too many advancements in our world today to still be wrongly accused for crimes and paying the ultimate price for them.The system is starving for reform to ensure that every single American citizen is equal and treated accordingly to his or her inalienable…
Police corruption is a problem that has and will continue to affect us all, whether we are civilian or law enforcement officers. An examination of any newspapers or police-related publications on any given day will have an article about an officer that got busted committing some kind of illegal act. Since its beginnings, many aspects of it have changed, however, a lot of it remains and it seems to just keep growing. Even though being a policeman is one of the most commendable and honorable professions in society, there have been certain instances that demonstrate misconduct and corruption in terms of unethical violence, illegal drug abuse, bribery and unjustified arrests.…
Wrongful convictions can happen, they should be looked at more by the system as more of a tragedy, but they do happen. In the criminal justice system there are so many different aspects and loop holes that effect the outlook on crime, let alone the convictions that happen. If we can look at all of the good that this system brings. All of the restitution paid, all of the criminals who committed a crime and have served what they deserve. I feel as if we can look so strongly at all of the good, we need to also look at the bad more intensely. The bad is what goes on the news. The bad is what makes cops, prosecutors, and judges look bad. On this task force, I want to review different aspects of our system that can be strongly correlated with wrongful…
A major issue surrounding criminal justice agencies across the United States is police brutality and the abuse of power. There has been case after case involving police officers using excessive, deadly force that more often than not unjustifiable behavior. Police departments have been in hot water lately because of the actions of certain officers. As a result, the criminal justice system as a whole is affected by the negative and inappropriate behavior. Instead of the officers who under scrutiny for the use of excessive force, all law enforcement officers are seen as cruel. The bad seems to outweigh the good. From protests and riots to the shootings of innocent police officers, there must be major changes made to criminal justice agencies because things have gotten…
Throughout history countless mistakes have been made, and lives have been drastically changed from these transgressions. An example of a great mistake is sanctioning Hitler’s rise to power. Although people are not aware of what the outcome may be, they still pull through. When one makes a mistake, others tend to cast blame. When one blames another person, others incline to be persuaded into believing invalid truths. An amalgamation of these two actions leads to a major problem in the justice system. By examining the burden of proof, the effects of corruption and relevant Canadian cases, one will understand that the criminal justice system if flawed and the wrongfully convicted deserve justice.…
The loosely applied laws toward certain individual within courts can also point to the faulty system that it is occurring in. The criminal justice system acts as the machine operated by the cogs. Courts often have a culture of lawyers who are socialized to see judges and law as supreme and not too question the outcomes. When lawyers are there to ensure their client is given a fair and speedy trial often you will see they are not there to represent or fight for their client, they are there to keep the system going. This can be seen as the crime control model. What this creates is the literal application of a speedy trial but not applying all aspects of the law. The idea of a fair trial is to separate the guilty from the innocent by protecting…
Law enforcement is successful in many facets of its duties and responsibilities. Even with all of the success law enforcement is able to accomplish, there are some ethical failures where improvement can be made. Examples of some ethical failures would be the code of silence, a conscience lack of team work amongst agencies, or leadership failing to remember, while they have a duty to the public, they also have a duty to their line level personnel.…