Ethics and Community Relations Essay

Ethics and Community Relations

Ethical Issues in Corrections

a) Identify and provide a brief explanation of the common restorative justice programs. Once completed, identify the one that has the best probability of success in your community (obviously this is more of an opinion-based question, but do your best to support it).

There is considerable variability among existing programs due in part to varying interpretations of conflict and different perspectives on how such conflict is addressed and resolved. The main categories of programs are (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2006):

(a) victim offender mediation;

(b) community and family group conferencing;

(c) circle sentencing;

(d) peacemaking circles;

(e) reparative probation and community boards and panels.

In our community, I personally feel that the reparative probation and community boards and panels model would be effective in many offenders; especially youth offenders. The underlying goal behind restorative justice is to identify and repair the harm that has been done to the fullest extent that is possible given the circumstances. Given the fact that the probation model is already in existence, I believe it could be expanded and modified to handle a broad range of different offenders and offenses.

There seems to be some evidence that programs that have been initiated in states such as Colorado have a significant amount of potential and have already produced results that can be deemed as beneficial to society. There is a greater focus on identifying and rectifying whatever issues may have been present in the offense. For example, one student in Colorado was able to avoid felony charges simply by being able to tell his story (Schrader, 2015):

"They went through that conference and they found that this boy, who had brought this knife to school, had been bullied pretty severely ... it was preventative protection for him," Kirsta Britton of the Weld County District Attorney's Office said. "They were all able to see each other's side of it. They all hugged at the end."

I believe that the probation model could use the existing system to administrate restorative justice initiatives based on the particular circumstances. The probation officer could act as the lead in identifying programs locally that could be used in the restorative process and responsible for the offender's participation and progress.

b) Describe the kinds of motivation that a correctional officer might have for engaging in corruption. Are some worse than others? What can be done to curb said motivations?

There are a plethora of reasons in which a correctional officer might engaged in corruption in his or her professional position. Probably some of the primary motivation such actions arise out of financial temptations or personal biases. For example, many probation officers have an average income and could potentially receive bribes to influence their behavior. Or an officer might simply make decisions based on their own personal biases without maintaining a sense of professional integrity. Each of these situations can be mitigated through transparency and oversight. For example, each case should be well-documented and subject to review from a third-party or supervisor. This could help the officer maintain accountability for their decisions. There can also be a channel for an offender to challenge an officers decision if they fell they have been unfairly treated.

#2 Topic: Ethics Issues in Crime Control Policy and Research

a) Identify 2 of the "crime myths" listed in the reading for Section 5. Explain the myths and identify how they are perpetuated.

The first myth is that news media is biased to blame crime on minorities. There seem to be many controversial statistics that exist about this myth. Many argue that minorities actually do commit more crimes per capita but is also a function of income inequality as well.

Another myth is that people tend to overestimate juvenile violent crimes. People tend to believe that violent crimes committed by juveniles are more frequent based on their age. The fact is that there is a similar proportion of violent crimes committed among various age groups.

b) Pick one of the following studies (make sure it's one that you did not complete in Section 5): the Stanford Prison Experiment, Tearoom Trade, Obedience to Authority, the Kansas City Preventative Patrol Experiment, or the Minneapolis Domestic…