Ethical And Moral Dilemma Studies - Case Study Example

ETHICAL AND MORAL DILEMMA CASE STUDIES The parole board As a matter of defining, a panel of persons sit andconsider whether a person in offense and serving in prison should be released having served over the minimum term prescribed and be monitored under parole explains a ‘parole board’ (Ward, 2012). These boards are currently in use within many jurisdictions across the globe and have the main challenge in determining the suitability of an inmate to have freedom to be back within the society. The deliberation is often on the likelihood of the prisoner to reform as against committing more crimes or offenses as were committed before conviction. It is therefore in such a framework that Robert is shown to serve as the leader to such a board the board under consideration is seen to be currently facing a dilemma in responding to the pressure within the prisons which has seen advocates rise to lobby for release of some inmates in order to decongest the facilities without consulting g the parole board which ideally has the responsibility of the determination. The board therefore faces the ethical dilemma as being that the necessity of releasing prisoners on parole to ease congestion in prisons equals the ethical responsibility of ensuring that such persons to be released does not threaten the welfare of the society through further crimes and such offenses. It is under such circumstances that Robert (the chair) receives the call from the governor on what role would the parole board play to ease the congestion rightfully as against allowing the suits to be filed by the advocates against the congestion prevail which may imply that many inmates would be released without considering the eventualities of increased crime and offenses within the society. The board has both opportunities of relaxing the standards and criteria of parole and having many inmates granted parole or having them remain stringent and subject strict evaluation on the inmates to verify suitability of the parole. Ethics and morality are the main motivations that parole board being the main actor in the scenario relies on. The board, under the chairmanship of Robert should consider relaxing the standards of parole in risk assessment as against allowing the federal process be effected because after the success of the suits by advocates, no rightful criteria may be pursued in releasing the inmates and at the same time, monitoring of the released inmates may be compromised. Morality and ethics as expected of the board should have the interests of both the inmates and the society at heart while deciding on the solution to the dilemma. Robert should have the governor understand how risk assessment works with parole practices as against the processes to be adopted through the federal processes which may not have such risk assessed properly. The main risk here is that f re-offenses being committed by released inmates and hence the solution would only be through strict assessment even though the standards would be a little relaxed. Robert should tell the governor therefore that the responsibility to assess and ascent to paroles are vested on the board exclusively through the rightful risk assessment procedures. However, with the dilemma at hand, the board is working on restructuring the standards in order to have more relaxed standards pursued while at the same time reducing the risks of re-offenses from the inmates within the society. The board should therefore have the mandate of conferring parole and as such, the correction systems should consider empowering the parole board in existence towards efficiency in assessing risks and hence according parole to lesser-risky inmates as against having a general release of inmates as this would largely threaten the welfare of the society at large (DiIulio, 1997). The warden It is generally expected that work place conditions influence the productivity of employees and the general performance of an organization. In the scenario presented by the case under analysis, effectiveness and productivity of a correctional facility relies on such factors as the number of in mates and the staff in service as well as the capacity of the staff to handle effectively the responsibilities in the facility. Besides, resources are necessary in order to have the needs of both inmates as well as the support staff tem met. However, in the event that the population within the facility increases, there is the absolute need to have the resources assigned increased in order to cater for the needs of not only the inmates but also those of the serving staff. When inmates exceed the support of the correction facility on resources, there is increased risk of crisis with staff and the inmates. This explains the fear of William (the warden) of having adverse reactions from the under-motivated staff in the foreseeable future. Possible solutions to the dilemma are through having the offsite program employed to handle additional inmates although the screening process is under question. The offsite program lacks a well structured screening mechanism which would be criticized on using guess work while designing additional inmates to community work. The moral dilemma that William and the team faces is that the necessity of easing the facility o congestion by the additional inmates is equal to the moral obligation of the facility to consider the security welfare of the community within which they may be deployed through the offsite release program. With the security staff union lobbying to have the warden explains a variable solution that the facility administration would have on the staff problem, William has to consider a number of issues. Having the additional inmates deployed onto such an offsite program has a likelihood of easing the pressure within the facility and lowers the staff burden. However, the problem of low motivation to the facility security staff would remain unattended and hence the problem cited by William on the safety of both employees and inmate population would still persist. The union of staff (to meet the warden) has the main motivation as being in lobbying for the welfare of the member staff while William has the interests of employees and inmate as the motivation in the efforts towards addressing the issues raised. The consequences of over esteeming the interest of staff as against the welfare of the inmates may be that security issues would be compromised. However, the consequences of having the interest of the two groups considered may be minimal and hence desirable as against the former. From critical analysis by this paper, William would have the solution to the dilemma being convincing the staff union of better consideration o the grievances of the staff through right screening of inmates to be deployed through the offsite program while at the same time emphasizing on morals to both the staff and excess inmates. This would be supported by the ethics defining and equating the welfare of either the employees or inmates because as much as the welfare of the inmates within the facility is paramount, the welfare of the security staff is equally as important. It would be unethical to prioritize the welfare of staff to that of the inmates and hence the position of William’s argument. The District Attorney Criminal trials are often quit complex processes which require that the prosecutor has firm basis o argument often through evidence which surpasses any doubt on the offenses committed by the defendant. However, in some instances, a prosecutor may adopt a plea bargain with the defendant with the offer of having other charge(s) written off to the defendant and or having the sentences not as severe as would if the defendant pleads guilty. Moreover, the plea guilty procedure may be adopted with the motive of reducing the time taken in trial processes especially with criminal offenses. This as shown by the excerpt under analysis is against the district attorney’s position with criminal offenses. Other possible ways to deal with criminal offenses is through proper trial procedures where the prosecutors gather enough evidence against the defendant through which the jury exercises the judgment and also the dismissal process. Under such, Martha is shown to be in a moral dilemma as to execution of her duties in campaigning in favor of the attorney against plea bargains and recommending proper and complete trials whereas she knows that the cases at hand lack reliable and concrete evidence to support the prosecutors against the suspects in drug culture within the city. The actual dilemma here is that while the attorney’s campaign on ‘no plea bargain’ is very justifiable, Martha has enough reason to believe that full trial would be lost by the prosecutors through little evidence on crimes and hence the support of the alternative. Martha is required to give a directive in advice of what mode of trial suits the cases at hand where she must consider the number, the position of attorney and the foregoing campaign as well as rational trial procedures. By examining the position under analysis, it is clear that the moral question is on how right it would be for Martha to advise on full trial while knowing that the prosecutors stands to lose through little or no evidence while at the same time considering the morals in coercing suspects to plead guilty to charged offences and receive favors in returns and either dismissing the cases altogether (Mokriski, 2010). Morality would not over esteem ones good over another person’s and hence this becomes the motivation of Martha as the actor in the case here towards giving a directive in the cases as required by the chief of staff. Accordingly, critical analysis by this paper has Martha likely to advocate for the plea bargain in the trials not only in the favor of the attorney and the foregoing campaign but also in favor of the prosecutors who are likely to lose on the grounds of lack of or no enough evidence as it is. The ethical basis for such an advice is that the government has the obligation of ensuring that the welfare of city dwellers is guaranteed against such crime as results from dug culture as is practiced here. The crackdown is therefore a welcome move for the good of the majority even if other arguments would reason that evidence should be paramount in such convictions. While lack of evidence by prosecutors would justify mere dismissals of the cases, the efforts to curb drug culture have the interest of the majority at hand hence the justification of trials in whichever way. Martha would therefore be morally and ethically justified to advice on plea bargain as a form of trial to be subjected towards the drug suspects under consideration. The Officer On duty service in police force is driven by orders and tasks as they arise. Training as well as in service experience by serving officers is enough to help a police officer like Linda to spot and likely be correct, a drug trafficker. However, as the case shows, with increased cases of arrests of drug culprits with little evidence in the station complicates the process of fresh arrests as the sergeant at roll would chastise fellow officers over such arrests. Besides, lack of capacity for local jails to hold more of inmates complicates the scene and Linda is torn between choices of arresting the ‘identity-less’ suspect who is confirmed to be trafficking drugs. Moreover, the call by police dispatcher on Linda to attend to a burglary case puts her at the dilemma morally. The actual dilemma here is therefore that although the dispatcher’s call requires promptness in action, the case that Linda is attending to is equally prompt and important. It would be unethical to have a serving officer confiscate such a drug dealer and let him free with all evidence for mere reason of attending to another call. Morally, drug conviction is as bad as burglary and as such, no moral justification would be availed as to why Linda would leave free the culprit in the drug case to respond to the dispatcher’s call even with the current situation with overcrowded jails and frequent chastisement by the seniors. The moral question that one could ask would be how moral the police seniors would be while condemning the service police over the drug arrests under such claims of many such cases being pending. Besides, one would compare morality in letting one vice go unattended in order to attend to another vice in the society. The dilemma that Linda faces is motivated by higher moral sense in the welfare of the society and the oath of service that should guide in the acts of the service officers. Besides, she is also obligated to honor the orders from her seniors and hence the conflict of interest. By letting go of the cocaine case, Linda would be acting against morality and the oath of service she took and the distribution of the drug would cause more harm to the society. On the other hand, failing to heed to the distress call by the dispatcher would imply that she doesn’t honor the authority and as such liable for punishment. Besides, her failure to attend to back up the burglary case may imply that her fellow officers would be outdone by the criminals and as such the whole force being in the losing side. Linda also would consider the morality in failing to arrest the drug trafficker on the premise of overcrowding o the jails which would also be unethical. This paper postulates that Linda would assume the call by the dispatcher to concentrate on the drug crime as it is an equal crime as the burglary is. The ethical support o such reasoning would be based on the fact that crime towards humanity is always unethical. Trafficking harmful substance such as the drug is compromises the social well being of the people who would use it and hence the moral responsibility of the police force to combat the crime. Although burglary is an equal vice, Linda is not ethically justified to leave drug crime to attend to the burglary because as much as burglary needs attention, drug trafficking requires an equal and urgent attention. Linda is therefore in crisis between choosing to be loyal to the seniors and acting legally as the profession expects of her (Anon, 1987). References Anonymous, (1987). An ethical dilemma. The Christian Science Monitor Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1034927525?accountid=45049 DiIulio,J. J.,. (1997). Reinventing parole and probation. The Brookings Review, 15(2), 40-42. Mokriski, J. C. (2010). Lawyers, legal ethics, and real ethics. The Professional Lawyer, 20(2), 11-13. Ward, M. (2012, May 16). Parole rates surge to avoid unsupervised releases. 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