Aims of Criminal Justice Ethics Education (From Teaching Criminal Justice Ethics: Strategic Issues, P 3-14, 1996, John Kleinig and Margaret Leland Smith, eds.)

• NCJ Number: 170172
• Author(s): W C Heffernan
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 12 pages
• Sale Source: Anderson Publishing Co
• Publication Type: Conference Material
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper presented at a workshop on criminal justice ethics education held June 6-8, 1996, at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.

Annotation

This essay uses a "guidance" model and a "contested-issues" model to comment on the aims of criminal justice ethics courses.

Abstract

Under the guidance model, the aim of criminal justice ethics courses would be to apply well-established ethical principles to particular criminal justice settings. Under the contested-issues model, students would become familiar with a wide range of readings so as to contrast ideas and develop distinctions, as well as analyze the issues that confront them in the course. Students would be graded not on the substantive correctness of ethical positions, but rather on the logic and skill used in the development of their positions. This essay advances three arguments regarding the models. First, it argues that the contested-issues model defines the sole acceptable approach to university-based instruction in ethics; no compromise with the guidance model is possible. The other arguments are related to this conclusion. The second argument is that criminal justice ethics courses, like other occupational ethics courses, have benefited from a blurring of their aims. Although most instructors adhere to the contested-issues model, public support for ethics courses is based on the mistaken impression that the courses specify precise behaviors. Instructors have a vested interest in fostering this misimpression. This essay argues, however, that instructors should clearly state that their courses cannot be expected to, and do not, aim at producing better criminal justice officials, at least as the public understands this term. Finally, the essay contends that the indignation the public feels about conduct such as bribe-taking and assaults on suspects can find some relief in university-based instruction, but in public administration courses rather than in ethics courses. Public administration courses can consider ways to restructure criminal justice agencies so as to reduce the incidence of the behavior that distresses the public. 6 notes