Exam One Study Guide Flashcards
What are the two meanings of the word ethics?
A branch of philosophy concerned with what is right and wrong
A set of principles based off of values and morals that guide human behaviour
What are the four ethical elements facing criminal justice professionals
Discretion: police ability to freely choose best course of action
Duty to enforce the law: must enforce the law even if they don’t like it
Duty to uphold the Constitutional protections: must keep in mind citizens rights eg due process and equal protection
Act as a public servant: must hold themselves accountable to the public
What is the teleological approach to ethics?
Focuses on ends not means. Doing bad things for good results. Looking at situations w this approach do cost and benefit analysis of the options available and go w the one with most benefits
Two criticisms of the teleological approach
Can always define what the benefits are or long term consequences or rewards
Subjective view of benefits and costs
Outcomes never justify unethical or unlawful behaviour used for means
What is the deontological approach
Always doing the right thing regardless. Opposite of teleological approach. Focus on following the rules. What would a reasonable person to
Two criticisms of deontological approach
Sometimes following the rules can lead to harm as general rules doesn’t fit specific situations
What is right and moral to some may not be to others this not one rule can be used for all cases, what is wrong and right is subjective
who is Robert peel
Father of modern policing. Established the first police, the London Metropolitan Police in UK and police act of 1829.
Three of peels principles for policing
Police should stay in a good relationship w community
No guns
Never take over role as judge as they are not impartial
Effectiveness based off absence of crime not seeing police dealing w it
Only use force if advice, warning or persuasion is not enough
Police should be hired on character not political ties
Name three eras of policing in America
The political era
The reform era
The community policing era
Three features of reform era
Focus on going back to early policing roles that were more independent from the community. Officers were required to have education and training and went through screening processes instead of getting jobs out of association. returned to military style policing w procedures and policing governing action. Crime data was kept to find out how effective people are.
Three elements to the political era
Politics ruled policing thus hiring was done by bribes or through political connections, the officers were heavily involved in the community and had other jobs such as trash pick up, wages were extremely low so bribes were common, police lived in the community which fuelled corruption and discrimination. The bill of rights and much of the constitution did not yet apply to the states do there was a lack of protection for citizens from then early police. First time U.S. Had prosper police forces.
Three elements of the community policing era
Large emphasis on the police workin with the public. A large closeness between the community and the police. More programs for rehabilitation and help wee provided instead of just arrests and imprisonment. People had more discretion in their actions and returned to foot patrol to meet community. Larger focus on statistic crime data to track patterns of crime.
What is one ethical issue in each era?
Political: corruption from closeness and abuse of power from lack of training and education and corruption
Reform: Breakdown in community and police relationship due to an us v them mentality
Community: closeness leading to corruption as seen in the political era
What are four things August Vollmer promoted in policing
Father of professionalism and return to military type policing in reform era.
- job screening
- education and training
- return of professionalism in policy and produced procedures and policies
- appointed qualified persons to high authority such as chief of police
What are three things that O.W. Wilson promoted in policing?
Introduced idea of special units and law and order tings
- established clear chain of command
- established special units w experts
- move to automobile instead of foot patrol w two way radios
- established police call boxes
