For the assignment “Ethics and Community Relations” I have chosen “The Importance of Ethics to the Criminal Justice Practitioner” article by Kristine Tucker for a wide variety of reasons. Tucker, in her article, pays attention to the issue of importance of ethics for the Criminal Justice Practitioners, such as Defense attorney, Prosecuting attorney, police officer and the judge. In the article, Tucker states that for the people, who build a career in criminal justice system, following ethical standards is crucial, because these standards provide “guidelines for conduct as officers of the law”.
According to Tucker, “ethics will likely govern your interactions with law-breakers, influence your decision-making processes and affect your interpretation of the law” dependable on the position you occupy in the criminal justice system. As for the defense attorney, Tuckers’position is following: ethical standards of a defense attorney are “twofold”, which means that a defense attorney responsibility is to represent the clients’ position fairly, after assuring that clients’ testimonials are trustworthy and to keep away from assisting client to offer false proof. Tucker states that prosecuting attorney ethical standards are also a challenge to deal with, because their duty is not only to accuse the one who is guilty, but also not to place the blame on someone, who is not guilty. Regarding police officer ethical standards, Tuckers’ position is that they are critically important, because if there would not be any, police officer would be able to “threaten, assault or badger an offender to get a confession” which would lead to a total chaos in the streets and destruction of community. Judges, who, by opinion of Tucker, are to be the highest institution of all in the criminal justice system, are in great need of following ethical standards, because undoing so, would place every judge in the situation, when his/her personal opinion, religious values or feelings would be higher than the Constitution itself.
In my opinion, this article relates to the course of ethics and community relations in a direct manner through the main point of the article, that justice and, in particular, criminal justice is one of the fundamental institutions that keeps community healthy. Therefore, it is significant to recognize and apply ethics not only in the criminal justice system but in everyday life too.
Works Citied
Tucker, K. (n.d.) The Importance of Ethics to the Criminal Justice Practitioner. Demand Media.
Web. 2 Apr, 2016. Retrieved from: http://work.chron.com/importance-ethics-criminal-
justice-practitioner-6542.html
