Ethical Issues In Criminal Justice Research Paper

Shown in this image is the amount of days 3 or more people are killed by police in red, killings of 2 people by U.S. police in orange, and yellow shows when 1 person was killed by the police in the U.S. White boxes indicate when no one was killed by police. As you can see, white boxes are the least. There are just 14 days in the entire year that someone was not killed by a police officer. This image shows how often ethical decisions are required by police officers, that is, everyday.

Black people are most likely to be killed by police according to this data. We have seen many accounts of this in America in recent years. While everyone has an opinion about why this is happening, the fact remains that the code of ethics is habitually violated. The death of a citizen that is not

armed should be resolved 100% of the time without a result of death. A professional officer is trained to make these quick decisions. Due to professional training being required to do the job, the choices of the officers and their decisions to shoot are brought into question.
The case of unarmed Trayvon Martin seemed to spark a national outrage regarding unlawful deaths. While Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, people viewed this as an unjust event, that was bigger than it happening at the hands of a volunteer, and should have resulted in a conviction. It was considered a situation of racial profiling. Against the advice from the 911operator, George Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin, and it resulted in Trayvon dying from a gunshot. The homicide detective for this case stated that George Zimmerman failed to identify himself as a concerned citizen (CNN, 2018). This resulted in no charges and thus the beginning of a national movement called Black Lives Matter. The overall opinion of the case was feelings of injustice and anger. People felt that the justice system could’ve made it right with a conviction of George Zimmerman, and felt betrayed once again by the justice system.
In 2014, America watched the very publicized death of Eric Garner. Eric Garner was standing outside a store when he was approached by police officers. It has been reported that he broke up a fight right before he was approached by the police. The setting of where this event took place is one where there is expensive real estate across the street. This plays a part in why the police were there. Allegedly, they were trying to clean up the area from people that looked like Eric Garner. Eric had children that he was trying to provide for and did not spend money on keeping himself up. He had a history of selling cigarettes outside of this particular store. At this particular time he was not doing anything that would warrant an arrest. Due to this, he was in disbelief that they were trying to arrest him and take him into custody. This disbelief cause him to resist. The situation escalated quickly, without any real threat to the officers. He was tacked to the ground and put in a head lock. This head lock caused him to have difficulty breathing. He complained that he could not breathe. Unfortunately, this resulted in the death of an unarmed black man, leaning up against a building, trying to catch his breath, after breaking up a fight. Matt Taibbi states, “This is a perfect metaphor for everything that's wrong with the modern policing strategies, the things that we call "broken windows" policing, which heavily emphasizes targeting minor offenders. The whole theory of modern policing in most big cities in America is if you go after the little things — people jumping turnstiles, ... urinating in public, selling [single cigarettes called] "loosies," doing the little things — then people will be discouraged from walking out of their homes in the morning carrying a gun or with the intent to commit a more serious crime” (Taibbi, 2017.). The officer responsible for choking Eric Garner to death is still employed by the NYPD. Profiling was also an unethical action done in this situation. Part of the police code of ethics states, “I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, political beliefs, aspirations, animosities or friendships to influence my decisions. With no compromise for crime and with relentless prosecution of criminals, I will enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill will, never employing unnecessary force or violence and never accepting gratuities” (IACP, ND). It would seem that violation of this part of the code took place during the arrest of Eric Garner. According to what we saw as the public, on the video of his death, unnecessary force was certainly used.
Something that we have seen in the reporting of these deaths, that have called unethical practices into question are victim blaming. The public has witnessed the character of these unarmed men being brought up in very negative ways. These tactics seem to be a way to justify the killings. When this victim blaming continues to happen case after case the public are lead to believe that maybe what they know to be true, is not true at all. For some people, it is easy to be lead down this path. The underlying unethical feelings, or beliefs were already there. For others, it is something that continues to feel unjust, unethical, and a deliberate misuse of power (Jenab, 2016.)
The use of body cameras worn by police officers were meant to tell the story that wasn’t being told.

That is, catching any unethical behavior that was happening. In Baltimore some police officers were caught planting evidence at crime scenes that would cause the suspect to receive undesired outcomes. In one particular situation a Baltimore police officer, Richard Pinheiro, was seen on video planting drugs during a part of the recording that is captured before the activation. As a result, the suspect was held in jail for months unjustly. The officer did not lose his job, he was suspended. In another situation, a police officer was caught planting drug in a car during a traffic stop. It was the same circumstance of the video catching a total of 30 seconds of video before activation. Both of these misconducts came to light due to an unknown feature on the body cameras. There are countless circumstances of police planting evidence during alleged crimes. Meanwhile, it is still believed to be a very small percent of police officers that are engaging in these unethical behaviors. The cases that it is most frustrating, and heartbreaking, is when someone loses their lives and no weapon was

found
There is no denying that police officers are in one of the most publicized and criticized careers. This job requires a very high standard of ethical decisions to be made on a consistent basis. We are all watching what is going to take place between the community and the police department. It is a police officers obligation to live ethically both on the job and off. Also stated in the code of ethics for police officers is, “I recognize the badge of my office as a symbol of public faith, and I accept it as a public trust to be held so long as I am true to the ethics of police service. I will never engage in acts of corruption or bribery, nor will I condone such acts by other police officers. I will cooperate with all legally authorized agencies and their representatives in the pursuit of justice” (IACP, ND.). After the research that I have done regarding unethical behaviors of police officers I am left wondering, how serious this code of ethics is taken. Communities all across America have witnessed more than several unethical acts done by police officers. When nothing is done to prevent these behaviors to continue the community loses “public trust” as it is stated in the code of ethics (Hendry, Barajas, 2017).
While there is no single solution to this very real problem of unethical decisions made by police, we must start some where to creating better police work across our country. There has to be conversations, training, and even purging of so called “bad apples” to bring healing to the community and maybe one day a renewed trust in the very people that have sworn to serve and protect us.