Professional Ethics in Criminal Justice: Being Ethical When No One Is Looking » (2nd Edition)

JAY S. ALBANESE is Chief of the International Center at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).  NIJ is the research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.  He is on leave from his position as Professor of Government & Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University.  Jay received the Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from Rutgers University and B.A. from Niagara University.  He was the first Ph.D. recipient from the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice.  Dr. Albanese is author of seven books that include Criminal Justice (3rd ed., Allyn & Bacon, 2005), Organized Crime in Our Times (4th ed., Lexis/Nexis/Anderson, 2004), and contributor to Comparative Criminal Justice Systems (3rd ed., Wadsworth, 2006).  Dr. Albanese is Executive Director of the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime (www.iasoc.net).  He is a past president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS), the White Collar Crime Research Consortium, and the Northeastern Association of Criminal Justice Sciences.  Dr. Albanese is recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award from the Sears Foundation (1990), and the Elske Smith Distinguished Lecturer Award from Virginia Commonwealth University (2001).

A well balanced survey of ethics presented through applications to the criminal justice system.

The text introduces the reader to ethical decision making in the first chapter and then moves through three major ethical perspectives: virtue, formalism, and utilitarianism. The text then moves to the social and criminal justice context where ethics is discussed in separate chapters as it relates to law, police, courts, and corrections, and liability in general. The final chapter looks to the future development of ethics in everyday life.

1. Recognizing Ethical Decisions: Ethics and Critical Thinking

What are ethics and what is ethical?

To what types of things or beings should we limit the discussion of ethics?

What is the difference between morals and ethics?

What are values?

Why is critical thinking fundamental to ethics?

Ethics Checkup: Too Much Nintendo

Can morality be taught?

What is moral relativism?

How can we choose what to believe and how to act ethically?

Ethics in Books: The World According to Mr. Rogers

Ethics in the Movies: The Emperor’s Club

Critical Thinking Exercises

1.1 Teenagers and Drug Sniffing Dogs

1.2 Sentenced to the Newspaper

1.3 Brewing Up a Storm

1.4 Internet Predator Sting

2. Virtue Ethics: Seeking the Good

The Roles of Socrates and Plato

Nichomachean ethics of Aristotle

A hierarchy of “goods”

The ultimate good

Stoicism and Hedonism

Ethics Checkup: ATM Trouble

Moral virtue

Achieving moral virtue

The habit of moral virtue

Evaluating ethical dilemmas

Ethics in Books: Why Can’t We Be Good?

Ethics in the Movies: Return to Paradise

Critical Thinking Exercises

2.1 A Parole Fugitive at Princeton

2.2.Misrepresentation at MIT

2.3 Presidential Exit Ethics

2.4 A Large Contribution

3. Formalism: Carrying Out Obligation and Duty

Kantian ethics

The categorical imperative

The practical imperative

Ethics Checkup: Punishment for Lying

Lying & Criticisms

Comparing Formalism and Virtue Ethics
Ethics in Books: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

Ethics in the Movies: Hotel Rwanda

Critical Thinking Exercises

3.1 Lying to the Sick and Dying

3.2 Lies of Public Officials

3.3 Is a Good Deed Required?
3.4 Raising Awareness, Committing Crimes

4. Utilitarianism: Measuring Consequences

John Stuart Mill and utility

Pain, pleasure, and happiness

Motivation versus consequences

Ethics Checkup: Martha Stewart an Example?

Criticisms of utilitarianism

Summarizing ethical theories

Ethics in Books: The Good, the Bad & the Difference

Ethics in the Movies: Quiz Show

Critical Thinking Exercises

4.1 A Flexible Expense Account

4.2 The Bad Samaritan

4.3 The Ring of Gyges
4.4 CSI Effect on Offenders?

5. Crime and Law: Which Behaviors Ought to be Crimes?

The outer limits of morality

Choosing what to criminalize

Violating laws on moral grounds

Ethics Checkup: Beeper Ban

The ethics of criminals

An ethical explanation of crime

Ethics laws
Ethics in Books: Ethics for the New Millennium

Ethics in the Movies: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Critical Thinking Exercises

5.1 A Boat Ride with Some Close Friends

5.2 It Fell Off a Truck

5.3 Prostitution: Just a Business?
5.4 ‘24’ and Depictions of Torture

6. Police: How Should the Law be Enforced?

The scope of police decisions

Investigation and surveillance

Curtailing liberty: and stop and frisk

Placing in custody: arrest and search

Police Corruption

Ethics Checkup: Dirty Harry

Questioning: interrogation of suspects

Lies in court

Codes of ethics

Ethics in Books: On Bullshit

Ethics in the Movies: Minority Report

Critical Thinking Exercises

6.1 Suicide by Cop

6.2 Abusive Speed Traps?

6.3 The Informants Among Us

6.4 FBI Spy Powers Challenged

7. Courts: How Ought a Case be Adjudicated?

Doing justice

Prosecutor misconduct

Defense misconduct

Issues at trial

Ethics Checkup: Justice versus Mercy

Deciding cases without trial

Judicial decisions
Ethics in Books: Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World

Ethics in the Movies: A Civil Action

Critical Thinking Exercises

7.1 Butt Charge

7.2 Attorney Confidentiality of a Client’s Criminal Plans?

7.3 A Judge’s Relations

7.4 The Duke Lacrosse Case

8. Punishment and Corrections: What Should Be Done with Offenders?

The ethics of punishment

The problems of sentencing

Ethics Checkup: Punishment by Electric Shock

Corporal punishment

Innovative penalties Capital punishment

Life imprisonment more severe than death?
Ethics in Books: The Prince

Ethics in the Movies: Dead Man Walking

Critical Thinking Exercises

8.1 Ethics of Sniping and Negotiating

8.2 Ethics and Mandatory Minimums

8.3 Lawyer-Assisted Suicide

8.4 Predisposed to Re-offend?

9. Liability: What Should Be the Consequence of Unethical Conduct?

Civil remedies for ethical misconduct

Individual misconduct

Ethics Checkup: Employee E-mail Surveillance

Corporate misconduct

Government misconduct

Ethics in Books: Do Unto Others: Extraordinary Acts of Ordinary People

Ethics in the Movies: Shattered Glass

Critical Thinking Exercises

9.1 The Scarlet Driver’s License

9.2 Paying for Legislative Results?

9.3 Would You Do it for $1 Million?

9.4 Bananas and Terrorism

10. The Future: Will we be More or Less Ethical?

Recognizing ethical decisions when they arise

Is the bar rising?

Finding defining moments in life

Ethics Checkup: A Bathrobe Bonus

Being ethical when no one is looking

Ethics in Books: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

Ethics in the Movies: Gattaca

Critical Thinking Exercises

10.1 Both Sides of Genetic Testing

10.2 Transplant or Prosecute?

10.3 A Marriage Proposal

10.4 Good Warrant, Wrong House