Ethical Reactions in Law Enforcement

Criminal Justice
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Ethical Reactions in Law Enforcement
Law enforcement officers face ethical dilemmas while executing their duties. Some of the ethical dilemmas include gratitude, undercover tactics, excessive force, and brutality. Law enforcement officers are not immune from human feelings of anger and fear. Police encounter ethical challenges such as difficulties in deciding the right course of action in tricky situations. They also face ethical dilemmas in situations where the proper cause of action seems difficult to execute. The wrong cause of action might also be very tempting bringing about moral confusion (Pollock, 2014). This discussion examines the underlying ethical dilemmas that the Riverbend City police, Antonne James faced while trying calm the situation involving a reckless driver near a school. This objective shall be achieved through reviewing the ethical reactions in law enforcement and the solutions that could be undertaken in a criminal justice perspective.
Ethical Issues Associated with Shooting at the Driver
Ethical behaviors in the police force begin with the process of selection and hiring qualified individuals in the agency (Braswell, McCarhthy& McCarthy, 2002). The Riverbend police officer was just five weeks into service, and this means that the knowledge acquired in training would play a larger role in solving the situation because he was still inexperienced in the service. Ethical practice is the very first discipline taught to the new recruits in the police academies.

In this particular situation, the police officer was unethical to shoot at the driver because, in the first place, this action would not stop the car from hitting the children. The police’s weapon was used in the wrong context. This incident means that the officer did not know the course of action in the underlying situation prompting the police to apply ethical decision making before taking action. In ethical decision making, tests can be applied to help in the decision-making process, and these include critical thinking, media test, and the gut test.
In critical thinking, officers are supposed to analyze the outcome of a situation at the back of their minds in various ways. These include thinking about the legality of an action, the success of an operation, the end results of an action, options that can be used, whether the means violate ethical principle and the public judgment about the action. In media test, officers are required to reason out what their feelings would be if their intended actions would turn out to be a top story in the media. The gut test, on the other hand, is the conscience, the instinct, and the belief through which police officers can intuit the right action (Gaines & Miller, 2008). The police should be trained to apply the principle that ‘It is probably wrong if it feels wrong.’
Ethical Ramifications of Shooting at the Driver
One of the sole purposes of the police force is to serve and protect the citizens. In implementing this responsibility, the police are called to observe human dignity at all costs. The shooting situations would, in the first place, taint the image of the police force since one single case tends to represent the entire police force as lacking ethical principles when dealing with law-breaking individuals (Hess, Orthmann& Cho, 2014). The police, Antonne James can also face various charges such as the use of excessive force, murder, and failure to use his weapon in the right context. Weapons are allowed in law enforcement in situations where the life of a police officer is endangered like in the case where the culprit is armed and attempts to attack a law enforcement officer. The use of a weapon should also prove that the results after its use would not be worse than when it is not used. Shooting at the driver would not stop the car instantly and prevent damages on the children and the surrounding environment. The use a gun, at this point, indicates an ethical misconduct that the police should be charged with in the court of law.
Ethical Impacts of Dealing with the Aftermath Instead of Preventing the Situation
The police officer proved incompetent in handling the situation by staring at the reckless vehicle and later trying to take action when the situation became more dangerous. After arriving at the scene and noticing that he alone could not handle the situation, the immediate action would be to ask for reinforcement either from the police department or the public. Prevention is better than cure. In a situation where law enforcement officers act too late, the public fury points its figure on the responsible authorities for failure to take action in the right time. The impacts of dealing with the aftermath of a situation are usually unpleasant and make the public to lose confidence in the very people it entrusted with protection. Police are trained to act faster but wisely in handling situations that contain ethical dilemmas to uphold human dignity in their while maintaining trust with the citizens (Pollock, 2014). The case study poses a scenario that tends to present the police force as a very sensitive agency facing sorts of ethical dilemmas but the way to handles them protects the citizens and uphold good image of the police. Competency test needs to be conducted in the police service in the police graduating from training for purposes of preventing a similar situation from happening at the early stages of an officer’s career.
References
Braswell, M., McCarhthy, B.R. & McCarthy, B.J. (2002). Justice, Crime and Ethics. Cincinnati,
OH: Anderson Publishing Co.
Gaines, L. K., & Miller, R. L. (2008). Criminal justice in action. Nelson Education.
Hess, K. M., Orthmann, C. H., & Cho, H. L. (2014). Introduction to law enforcement and
criminal justice. Nelson Education.
Pollock, J. M. (2014). Ethical dilemmas and decisions in criminal justice. Nelson Education.