“What am I supposed to fall back on?” Cultural Literacy in Criminal Justice ethics

An Examination of the Ethical and Value Orientation of Criminal Justice Students

“…A second and related theory postulates that the profession attracts and recruits individuals who either ascribe to values conducive to unethical behavior or lack the moral fortitude to be able to resist the temptation they will inevitably face. Or as stated by Souryal and Potts (1993), ethical behavior in criminal justice is not necessarily a function of the organizational culture but rather a function of the individual's ability to internalize ethical positions focused on public service. The individuals recruited import into the profession the values supportive of unethical behavior, and these values in turn influence their work practices (Betz, O'Connell, & Shepard, 1989;Forsyth & Nye, 1990;Rokeach, 1973).…”

On the Need for Improving Ethics Education for a Frequently Overlooked Public Employee

“…In the debate about the police as a profession or a vocation, a college education is often looked to as the way to increase police professionalism, and to raise policing's stature to that of a full profession. As a result, colleges and universities are well suited "to spread the word," via well developed ethics curricula -curricula which should include the core areas of philosophy of ethics, moral rules and moral judgment, justice theories, ethics of public of service, and ethics of criminal justice agencies (Souryal and Potts, 1993).…”

Introduction to the special issue

“…For instance, several articles in past issues focused on women/feminism and crime, a special issue was devoted to women and criminal justice education (]CJE 3[2]; also see Gido 1990;Koser Wilson 1991;Wonders and Caulfield 1993). Contributions to this journal also have focused on white-collar crime (Wright and Friedrichs 1991), political crime (Tunnell 1993), comparative criminal justice (Peak 1991), ethics (Cederblom and Spohn 1991;Souryal and Potts 1993), and race and criminal justice (Young 1990). In fact, Claire Renzetti's essay in this issue takes to a logical conclusion the idea of continuing a teaching tradition.…”

“…The current issue also represents an extension of the debate on cultural literacy (see Barak 1991;Lynch et al 1992;Siegel and Zalman 1991;Souryal and Potts 1993;Thornberry 1990). As both the proponents and the critics of the need for cultural literacy recognize, one of its biases is that newer, more cutting-edge topics and research are less likely to be included, whereas established, more traditional topics are favored.…”