Debatably, the police force is the most conspicuous aspect of the criminal justice system. Concerned with direct enforcement of the law, the police force has the powers to investigate and conduct a lawful arrest. Within the police department are many other sections such as the traffic police, crime scene investigators et cetera. All these sections play roles within the whole system. The government provides the police with such facilities as vehicles and CCTV cameras to make the enforcement of the law more effective (Neubauer 111). Still, the police force is said to be the most corrupt institution in any country across the world. The corruption among the police forces has made citizens lose the trust of the otherwise custodians of the law. Eliminating corruption, which is the predominant unethical behavior of the police force, has been described as an impossibility. Experts in social; sciences say that corruption has become part and parcel of the law enforcement, such that all members that join the forces get absorbed into the vice.
Police corruption can be explained by various theories. Being unethical, the conduct is a social evil and has cost the community a great deal. The first and most prominent theory employed in an attempt to explain corruption among the police is the rotten apple theory. This theory explains that the unethical conduct is caused by the fact that police authorities hire people that already possess a high propensity to corruption (Garland 96). This has been elaborated by the fact that police recruits are not adequately trained in all ethical matters. For instance, the police trainees are not taught how to make decisions that are ethically acceptable. This way, the professional competence of the police personnel is compromised and their affinity to corrupt tendency increases. The recommendation that experts make in relation to this cause of corruption is that police training should embrace ethical theories. In other words, police training and instruction should embrace such disciplines as professional ethics.
The second theory that has been advanced in attempts to explain corruption is the society at large theory. The theory, first explained by O.W Wilson, argues that police corruption is an aspect of some conducts that are prevalent in the society (Neubauer 126). In other words, the vice is as a result of some behaviors that are commonly practiced in the society. For instance, the polite act of giving a police officer a dollar as a show of appreciation may be interpreted as bribery. As such, the police assume that corruption is just excellent as society appreciates it. This way, the police develop corrupt tendencies and start extorting bribes from individuals. The last theory that has been advance3d to explain the corruption menace is the affiliation theory. According to this theory, police officers become corrupt by learning the act of corruption from their seniors. The fact that their superiors do practice corruption justifies the idea of corruption. This way, the vice becomes a cycle as all people in the system learn to accept it by virtues that they learnt it from their superiors. As such, eliminating the vice becomes almost impracticable to the government.
The courts are an elementary part of the legal system concerned with the litigation processes as well as prosecution of criminals. It is this part of the criminal justice system that is more concerned with ethics. The courts apply such ethical theories and principles as the double effect theory in going about the judgments of criminal cases (Gibson et al 56). For instance, it is a matter of ethics to judge as guilty or not guilty an individual that has committed a small crime in order to prevent a more grim crime from taking place. The courts apply ethics in handling such legal principles as the law of complicity. An accomplice can, therefore, be an individual that fails to act ethically in the best interest of the general public. If the individual acts in the best interest of the public by preventing a crime that was within their capacity to prevent, he is deemed to have acted ethically. It is for this reason that the Court employs such aspects of ethics in considering an accomplice anyone that sees the preparation of a crime and does nothing or little at all to prevent it.
The theories of ethics that can be employed by the courts in handling criminal cases are moral relativism, utilitarian ethics, deontology and the absolute truth theory. The essence of applying these theories is based on the utilitarianism versus deontology as well as absolute truth versus moral relativism (Neubauer 119). The courts are entrusted with the task of handling criminals and subjecting their conduct to the legal procedures. As such, whether the criminal justice system of a country is just or not depends to a great degree on the efficacy of the courts. Perhaps, the courts cannot use such theories of ethic as the absolute truth theory. Similarly, deontology is inapplicable to the justice system. The main reason why absolute truth and deontology cannot be employed is because; the two ethicist theories are elements of idealism rather than realism. As a matter of fact, if things were to be judged as unquestionably right or absolutely wrong, the world could have been in constant conflict.
In deontology, an action is judged as wrong or right depending on the intrinsic nature of the act. As such an action that is intrinsically unacceptable, such as lying or killing, will remain wrong despite the motive behind it. Similarly, absolute truth is in such a way that something wrong remains wrong despite the outcome. On the contrary, moral relativism argues that the motive behind an action is extremely beneficial in determining whether or not the action was morally justified (Gibson et al 69). For instance, if one has to break into a pharmaceutical store so as to save a life by stealing drugs, the act of theft is morally justifiable. These are among the cases that the courts handle. They have a double effect since breaking into a store is a criminal wrong. On the other hand, saving a life is paramount and morally justifiable. As such, the courts must employ such ethical standards in coming up with sound judgments. Utilitarianism argues that the rightfulness or evilness of an act is determined by the result or outcome of such an act. This is to say that if a person tells a lie to the public, and from telling such a lie gets to facilitate an activity, from which the whole public benefits, then such lying is deemed right since it is for the wider interest of the community.
In conclusion, it is noteworthy that the criminal justice system, being a system at the core of the country’s security needs to be straightforward in its dealings. The main ethical concerns in the criminal justice system revolve around corruption. The fact that almost all bureaus of the criminal justice system are corrupt is a clear suggestion that the justice system is in dire need of training regarding the practice of professional ethics. It is only through the application of ethics and other codes of morally acceptable conducts that sanity can be restored. Arguably, citizens will only trust those individuals that are morally upright and socially acceptable (Garland 106). Essentially, the criminal justice system concerns itself with judgmental ethicist theories as utilitarianism and moral relativism.
Works cited
Gibson, Bryan, Paul Cavadino, and David Faulkner. The Criminal Justice System: An Introduction. Winchester: Waterside Press, 2008. Print.
Garland, David, Alison Wakefield, and Hirsch D. Von. The Ethics of Situational Crime Prevention. Oxford: Hart, 2000. Print.
Neubauer, David W. America's Courts and the Criminal Justice System. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.
