Week 5 Public Policy in Criminal Justice

Public Policy in Criminal Justice

            Ethical decisions are decisions that every person makes every day when going about their day.  Making an ethical decision could be as easy as waiting at a red light when nobody is around or crossing the street by foot when cleared to by the traffic system.  The problem with ethics is that they are subject to interpretation from person to person.  Ethical standards often drive various policies to determine what is allowed and what is not allowed.  These same standards drive legislation to create what is illegal and what is legal under the government of any society.

            As time progresses some things that were illegal become legal or fall under far less of a punishment and some things that were not illegal become illegal.  This trend is representative of a changing culture, social standard and mentality of what is ethical or right and what is unethical or wrong.  Police officers face tough ethical decisions daily when facing difficult calls where they need to determine use of force if necessary.  Historically, there have been some severe use of force cases that have gone national and some cases where the victim has won in court.  These police officers however do not write the law but merely follow it assuming the laws written by the elected officials are right and ethical.

            Policy writers in the criminal justice system are often reactive to incidents.  When cell phones first become popular in the late 90’s and early 21^st century some vehicular accidents occurred as a result of a vehicle operator being distracted by the use of their phone.  This drove criminal justice policy writers, or the legislature in some states to begin writing policies to make the use of a cellular device while driving a finable offense.  This penalty picked up momentum in several other states where the penalty has grown and become more and more severe.  The questions the policy writers face whenever writing any new policy, such as cellular device restrictions are if they are ethical and constitutional. 

            While banning cellular devices while operating a vehicle sailed through some states, it failed in others or hasn’t even been brought to the table.  This split in mentality shows two distinct sides to the issue.  Some states have legislature writers who state that careless and reckless driving are obvious offenses already in law that match the description of what a careless or reckless vehicle operator may do while distracted by their cellular device.  States that block cellular use state that they are saving lives and preventing accidents by introducing additional laws other than careless and reckless driving laws.  So this presents an issue, are the states that refuse to introduce new laws being unethical and careless or are the states entering additional laws being unethical by appearing to be more of a “nanny” style state?