Essay on "Right Versus Right Decision-Making in Criminal Justice Administration"

Essay 4 pages (1171 words) Sources: 3

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Ethical Decision Making in Law Enforcement Management

In general, ethical decision making in public policy and law enforcement involves right-versus-right decisions rather than right-versus-wrong decisions because all of the stakeholders involved represent valid and just objectives. In many respects, that makes public policy and law enforcement decisions more difficult than other types of decisions because ignoring a right is much more difficult than ignoring a right. Typically, these types of decisions must consider the interests and concerns of employees, citizens, and publicly elected officials.

Right-versus-Right Analyses

In principle, right-versus-right analyses incorporate four types of questions. First, the approach must consider the various identifiable consequences of every decision option, including the different types of consequences that affect different classes of individuals (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008). In that respect, the second area of inquiry in right-versus-right analyses requires comparing the respective importance and magnitude of the full spectrum of conceivable outcomes associated with all possible corresponding decisions. That level of inquiry requires anticipating how the respective concerns and welfare of every stakeholder can be addressed within the framework of any given decision. The third element of right-versus-right decision making involves establishing a message capable of communicating the values that an organization hopes to represent, inspire, and emulate. The fourth and final element of right-versus-right decision making is an analysis of effectiveness in relation to stated strategic objectives (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008).

Employees

Within law enforcement, the most valuable commodity are the individuals who actually devote their lives to public service in a capacity that requires significant sacrifice and that often entails exposure to tremendously dangerous situations and circumstances. Naturally, right-versus-right decision making in connection with employees in law enforcement typically includes considerations of the safety of personnel as paramount in relative importance. However, in many instances, decisions that provide optimal (or maximal) personnel safety may not necessarily be the most practical decisions.

For one example, there is no question that two-man patrol vehicles provide a much higher level of safety for police officers in the field than single-occupancy patrol vehicles (Schmalleger, 2010). On the other hand, not every police agency is fortunate enough to have the necessary resources (including manpower, vehicles, and budget) to field a fleet of two-officer vehicles. They may have to balance the right of officer safety with the right of being able to fulfill the agency mission for the entire community served by and reliant on the agency for police services. Unfortunately, in those types of situations, the right of agency mission and obligations to the community outweighs the right of providing maximum security and safety for officers in the field and often requires those agencies to rely on single-officer patrol vehicles or to field such a small number of officers in the field at any given time that backup is often too far away to provide the level of security that would be desirable and optimal. Obviously, both concerns are right: it is right to provide the maximum safety for officers in the field and it is right to ensure that agencies can fulfill their missions to their entire dependent communities with their available budgets.

Citizens

Right-versus-right ethical analyses also frequently apply to issues involving citizens in myriad ways. In the last decade, the so-called "war on terrorism" in the United States in particular has generated intense debate in exactly that regard. The most common controversy that typically triggers right-versus-right ethical analysis in contemporary law enforcement is the balance between public safety on one hand and civil liberties on the other hand… READ MORE

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