Introduction:
Ethics is like a pool of moral principles, It influences how people make decisions and live their lives. Ethics revolves around the fact that what is good for an individual, society and is also considered as the moral philosophy and its major concern consists of the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which the human actions can be judged right or wrong.
Morality and ethics are closely related. So, in this topic we will discuss about criminal justice system and the concept of ethics, it’s very important for an individual to perform their duty with utmost diligence and follow the protocol. The people who come under the category of this criminal justice system have a moral responsibility to follow and respect the laws and also make people follow them and not violate it and protect them from any harm, So, they are bound ethically to act truthfully.
In the society in which we live in, there are different kinds of people and everyone has a different set of principles and perspectives so what may be morally right for me, it’s not necessary that the same thing would be right for another person and at this point where the conflict arises. So, when the question comes to morality, ethics, duties things get difficult to comprehend.
Origin of Ethics
When did ethics begin and how did it originate? If one has in mind the concept of ethics i.e., the systematic study of what is morally right and wrong it is clear that ethics could have come into existence only when human beings started to reflect on the best way to live. The process of reflection tended to arise from such customs, even if in the end it may have found them wanting. Plato considered the suggestion that it is divine approval that makes an action good. Plato pointed out that, if this were the case, one could not say that the gods approve of such actions because they are good.
Why then do they approve of them? Is their approval entirely arbitrary? Plato considered this impossible and so held that there must be some standards of right or wrong that are independent of the likes and dislikes of the gods. Modern philosophers have generally accepted Plato’s argument because the alternative implies that if, for example, the gods had happened to approve of torturing children and to disapprove of helping one’s neighbors’, then torture would have been good and neighborliness bad.[1]
Concept of Ethical and Cultural Relativism
Ethical relativists argue that what is morally right or wrong may vary in a fundamental way from person to person or from culture to culture. In other words, as Robert Arrington (1983) argues, we cannot simply say that a moral judgment is true for all purposes, persons, and cultures—we can assert only that it is true for a particular person or social group. Relativism does not mean that we cannot criticize people of other cultures on moral grounds, but it does mean that when we say that a person in another culture did wrong or acted immorally, we must judge that person by the standards of that culture and not by our own. In other words, there are objective moral standards as long as judgments about right and wrong are made relatively.
The proponents of cultural relativism argue that every society has a different moral code explaining what acts are permitted or not permitted. They argue that we cannot judge one moral code as being superior to another, because there is no objective standard to apply to make such a judgment. In other words, the moral code that we, in the United States, subscribe to is not special. Accordingly, it is simply one moral code among many. If the moral code of a particular society determines that a certain act is right, then the act is right within that society. Accordingly, it is not for us to judge other people’s conduct in other societies. We should be tolerant and avoid being judgmental.[2]
Relationship between the Criminal Justice System and Ethics
The criminal justice system is the most important public service system and its closely related to ethics, ethics are the foundation of the criminal justice system. The people who are employed under this system like lawyers, judges, police officers, etc often they are encountered with such situations in which they have to act spontaneously and make quick decisions whose repercussions can be fatal or detrimental.
According to the social contract theory the people give liberties to get protection from the government and the personnel of criminal justice are the agents of the government. The judges are expected to have a high moral character so that the people have faith in the law and order and believe injustice. Similarly, the lawyers should not cheat with the clients and maintain the confidentiality and provide them the legal aid in every possible way also the police officials have the moral responsibility to protect the citizens of the country from any danger and catch the culprit, conducting the investigation in a fair and transparent manner and not being deceitful to the layman. When discretionary decisions are guided by ethics, decisions taken can be fair and just, because there are always some shades of moral obligations that are higher than the others.
Importance of the Criminal Justice System
The awareness and importance of ethics in the field of criminal justice are increasing at a fast pace. This is because, as in virtually every other occupation, criminal justice officials also engage in unethical behaviors during the course of their 8-hour shifts. Every year there are practitioners who end their careers in disgrace by engaging in unscrupulous activities. This includes behaviors that are outright illegal, as well as those that have not been labeled as being criminal in nature. It is noteworthy that not every type of unethical behavior is necessarily illegal. In fact, criminal justice practitioners engage in many types of unethical behaviors that are not governed by the legislature and the court system.[3]
We have seen many cases in which the officials act wrongfully sometimes the judges ignore all the relevant facts, evidences and gives a biased verdict because they get indulged in corrupt practices, it affects the whole system and it’s a miscarriage of justice and due to such illicit activities people gradually starts losing faith in the law. Most of the times the lawyers charges hefty amount of money from the client or just for one appearance in the court and instead of working hard on the case and seeking justice for the clients they use all the dirty tactics to make more and more money from the clients, A lawyer and a client has a fiduciary relationship and by committing such immoral and unethical act, the common man gets impacted emotionally, mentally and financially.
Police Brutality
Now talking about the police officials they have a very crucial role in safeguarding people’s rights and interest but the opposite of this has happened in the recent cases like how horrendously George Floyd was killed. It was a blatant misuse of power and authority and the recent case of custodial death we saw in India was the death of innocent father and son, Jayraj and Fenix, who were killed brutally, ruthlessly, it’s insane and heart wrenching, such monsters should not be spared in any condition, and many such horrifying incidences of custodial deaths occur in many parts of India as well as around the world.
Many times the police officials have inhumanly beaten up the people on the basis of religion, poverty, etc and some demons crossed all the limits and instead of giving a protection they took the advantage of the situation and vulnerability and have sexually assaulted and raped the women who asked for help and this is really utter disgusting, pathetic, outrageous and shameful. There was also a case during 1990 of African American name Adolph Archie it was stated that he shot and killed a white police officer, unfortunately later Archie died under unknown circumstances, he was not taken to the hospital but instead, he was taken to the police station where the deceased officer worked and there’s a report that scuffle took place and Archie was brutally beaten up and later on iodine was injected in his body of which he was allergic to and many concluded that this was the cause of his death, Its utter shame that nobody was held accountable and the important documents were disappeared from the hospital.
One more case occurred on 4th September 2005, after the hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, police blatantly shot six civilians who were simply crossing the bridge in search of food and shelter, 2 people were killed and others were seriously wounded, police claimed that they fired shots because the civilians were shooting but there were no guns found and the victims also denied all the false accusations. Also, there are so many fake encounters that happen and no proper inquiry is conducted against the police officer who commits the crime and no one is held liable, even after committing the crime of homicide the offender walks free.
Conclusion
The criminal justice professionals are given certain power, responsibilities by the government to protect the residents in exchange of the few liberties given by them that’s why they are different from the general population because they have certain important duty to perform efficiently, they are expected to have high moral standards so that they can be on their front foot for any given situation. It is the duty of the criminal justice system to make sure that the law and order is properly maintained and delivered on the basis of fairness and equity. “Ethical behavior is expressed by the ethos that drives the rationality behind ethical decision making”.
An individual should understand the fact that the people who work under the criminal justice system comes from the various walks of life and experiences when an individual choose criminal justice as their career, they are reshaped by the organization and must carry all the duties and functions according to the rules, boundaries, limitations set by an organization and should be within the constricted frame and should not infringe it, but many of the times these officials instead of honoring the position and trust given to them they get deviated from the path and gets indulge in unlawful activities, this leads to the collapse of the whole system leading to disastrous consequences.
The police officer, or supervisory officer, or judge who accepts bribes and bonuses or engages in sexual relations with clients, begins his moral career, which leads to higher forms of corruption and unethical behavior. so one must understand, consider and respect their authority, duty, and the moral obligations attached with it, so these officials are bound to perform their roles in a diligent manner and shouldn’t refrain from doing so, one must analyze the situation and come up with a decision which is beneficial to all and not only themselves and keep their selfish motives, greed, grudges, aggression, etc aside while performing the important functions because one wrong deed can hamper the system, society drastically so thinking wisely and acting in a truthful and ethical manner is the need of an hour.
References:
[1] Peter singer, Ethics, Encyclopædia Britannica ( January 13 2020 ) https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethics-philosophy
[2] Peter singer,The importance of ethics in criminal justice System, sagepub https://www.sagepub.com/
[3] http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/criminal-justice-ethics/
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