Criminal Justice Ethical System (Coursework Sample)

Criminal Justice Ethical System Student Name Institution Course Professor Date Criminal Justice Ethical System As a parole officer, I am faced with a tricky scenario concerning a mother on my file. She manages to feed a family of four children, including three kids with ADHD, through working as a stripping dancer. Moreover, she smokes marijuana as an outlet for stress, breaking her probation conditions. This situation presents me with a moral and professional dilemma that I must resolve by determining whether following the law is more important than considering the ethical impact my choice may have on the parolee and her children. To navigate this ethical quandary, I will deliberate my course of action through the lenses of four ethical systems: utilitarianism, deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and the ethics of care. Each of these frameworks represents a unique view of the moral aspects involved, informing my choice to ensure that my actions as a parole officer are consistent with my functions while respecting those affected by my actions. This analysis seeks to identify the most moral decision that should be made based on the rights and welfare of the prisoner and her children while ensuring the principles of justice and rehabilitation as the basis for executing my duty. Utilitarianism would compel me to focus on the results of my actions and their impact on all the stakeholders' mental and physical conditions. According to utilitarianism, the most correct choice seems to lead to the greatest good for the most people (Savulescu et al., 2020). Reporting her may be the result of her being put in jail, thus disorganizing her children's lives as they will not have a primary caregiver to look after them. This reaction is likely to have a heavy emotional and psychological impact on the children, who are already facing many obstacles because of their conditions and parental situation. The negative impact on the children's well-being, together with their mother's inability to meet their needs, is not likely to be made up by the advantages of following probation rules. As a result, in favor of the common good for the majority of people, I do not think I would report on her use of drugs. This choice is theoretically based and utilitarian, as it stresses preserving the family by prioritizing children's welfare before rule observance, thus promoting a humane and politically correct approach. Deontological ethics, another school of reasoning, focuses on performing duty and consistently following existing standards, regardless of the probable results. This ethical framework thus suggests that my role as a parole officer is to follow the law and execute the probation terms, which clearly state that the probationer must not be involved in drugs. The deontological principle considers that even reporting the parolee's marijuana use is not only a matter of moral choice but also a moral duty since seeing this violation and not reporting a dereliction of duty can lead to undermining the legal system. This perspective is based on the principle that moral uprightness is essentially a product of our rule-abiding nature and our ability to handle our assigned duties, independent of any personal bias and possible consequences (Tseng & Wang, 2021). In a deontological approach, a correct action would be to report the infringement, which would add the notion that moral actions are the ones that are based on fulfilling the duty and the law and not on the outcomes that might seem beneficial in the short term. This type of law ensures the impartiality of legal institutions. It strengthens the tradition of rule-based ethics as a necessary element of the socio-political life of the community. In virtue ethics, the focus changes to the character of the decision-maker and his/her virtues rather than to the mere legality of the act or its results. This ethical framework allows me to incorporate the virtues of compassion, empathy, and phronesis as a parole officer. However, these virtues push me to critically assess the plight of the parolee, appreciating the stress she undergoes in the course of her effort to take care of her children while at the same time struggling to handle her stress, not in a manner that would be ideal. Instead of choosing a strict punitive measure that could worsen the family's situation by taking out the primary caregiver, the virtue ethics philosophy guides me toward an all-encompassing and supportive approach. It would include community outreach and connecting her with access to substance abuse counseling, parenting support services, and other resources that target the root causes of her stress and enhance her ability to care for her family. Through concentrating on these virtues, my actions focus on finding her healthy ways of overcoming difficult situations and show my dedication to her growth and well-being, reinforcing the fundamentals of virtue ethics. According to Williams and Arrigo (2021), virtue ethics emphasizes that character is important in ethical decision-making by showing that virtues such as kindness and practical wisdom are helpful in building solutions that support restitution and the unity of families. The ethic of care, focusing on nurturing and maintaining relationships, especially when an individual is particularly vulnerable or interdependent, enables me to see my responsibilities as a parole officer in a different light. Such an ethical perspective forces me to consider how my decisions can have a long-lasting effect on the family unit, with particular emphasis on the children who are helpless without their mother's emotional and physical support (Dominey & Canton, 2022). Given the indispensable role that the mother plays in the lives of her children and the trauma and disruption that could be caused b...