Correctional Officer Ethical Dilemmas

In a correctional setting, if the correctional officer gets complacent or decides to do the bare minimum work then an array of things can happen. With the case of the of a union work slowdown due to budget cuts and likely layoffs it can produce many ethical dilemmas. A correctional officer has duties “referring to those actions that an individual must perform to be considered moral.” (Pollock, 2016) This will also bring up ethical formalism which tells the officer to do your duty, but when there are conflicting duties it does not help. This is because you have to choose between a work slowdown and doing what you know is morally correct. When a correctional officer does not complete their duties then this would bring up an ethical dilemma. Due to these factors of a work slowdown by correctional staff it can affect many different groups of people, and not just officers. This work slowdown could also affect administration as well as the inmate population. If there are fewer officers due to budget cuts, then the safety of the inmates could be in jeopardy if there are less officers, or if they are doing the bare minimum work. It could also result in a cut in the

programming for the inmates to participate in while rehabilitating from the crimes they have committed. Budget cuts and layoffs it could also affect those officers and their families.
The results from this ethical dilemma need to be arrived by using a utilitarianism approach on the situation.

To fix this dilemma of a work slowdown it would be proposed that if layoffs are necessary due to budget constraints then layoffs are done by seniority with the department, as well as developing an early retirement package to those who are close to retirement. This could possibly save the jobs of those who could be laid off. To keep officers all overtime can and should be eliminated. Also, if an officer is laid off then they will be given the option to come back to the department as soon as fiscally possible. This would allow some officers to keep their job, others to retire early with a full retirement, and this would ease the pressure on administration to make layoffs within the

department.
The solution that has been proposed should help some officers keep their positions, and impacts the officer’s morale if they believe that they will still have job. It will also allow for some of the senior officers to retire slightly early, thus relieving the department of their higher salaries instead of cutting many smaller salaries. Allowing an early retirement program would give the administration another option in dealing with budget cuts. However, this could still lead to understaffing inside the facility. In which could affect the inmate population with concerns to safety of the inmate population, but officer safety as well. This also all falls under utilitarianism, “weighing the utilities or benefits” (Pollock, 2016) of the decision by some options being better than others. For example, a retirement package would be a benefit allowing other younger officers to keep their position compared to if the administration were to just start laying off staff. If this solution could be agreed on as the president of the union a work slowdown would not occur. Another example of offering early retirement assisting in budgetary concerns happened in the Easton Area School District in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “The previous agreement provided special retirement incentives for teachers and education office professionals, with three teachers and six secretaries taking advantage of the offer. That helped cut $195,000 from the budget, the board was told, because new hires will be coming in at beginning salaries. (Mathais, 2002)
From the experiences of working in the Indiana Department of Corrections a work slowdown would not work, due to a lack of a union, As well as the facility would not be able to operate on a work slowdown because of the amount of work that it takes to keep a correctional facility operational. Not to mention that it would extremely jeopardize the safety of the officers. So, ethically many officers might think about a work slowdown, but would never attempt it.