Criminal Justice Ethics – Week 2 Case Study
Scenario:
Sue
Yoo is a new attorney fresh out of law school.
Yoo has accepted a position with the Grantham County District Attorney's
office as an assistant prosecuting attorney.
The
first day on the job, Chris P. Bacon, who is also an assistant district
attorney introduces himself to Yoo and says, “I am your mentor for the first
90-days to help you get acclimated to your new job.” Bacon shows Yoo to her office.
As
Yoo admires her, new oak desk and bookcase filled with brand-new law books,
Bacon hands Yoo the large stack of files he had been carrying.
Bacon tells Yoo, "These are your files to
prosecute.” Bacon turns away from Yoo and starts to walk toward the door, but
instead of leaving, he shuts the door quietly.
Bacon then turns around and walks back to Yoo’s desk and states, "I
do not know what you learned in law school, but in the real world, the
attorneys around here work under time and money constraints." Bacon
continues to explain how the attorneys handle the cases in their office and the
point system.
Yoo
looked confused, and asked Bacon, “What are you trying to tell me?”
Bacon said, “Yoo, you look like a smart girl,
so let me lay it out for you, get through these cases quickly, offer the
defendants' plea deals, and for each case that ends with a conviction, you will
get five points." At the end of the month, the assistant district attorney
with the most points receives an extra day of vacation, off the books, of
course." Bacon pauses, looks Yoo in the eyes, and states, "If you
have a problem with this, there is the door, and this conversation never
happened, but if not, welcome to the team."
“Always remember that law is considered the basement of morality; even if you never break a law that does not automatically make you a moral person" (Pollock, 2019, p. 75).
References
Pollock, J. M. (2019). Ethical dilemmas and
decisions in criminal justice (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Assignment:
In 2 to 3 paragraphs, with a minimum of
250 words, apply two out of the seven - Bandura’s mechanisms listed in
chapter 4 (workgroup and organizational influences) to the above
scenario. Evaluate how the ethical climate of an organization precipitates
how employees behave and believe what acceptable ethical behavior is in the
workplace.
Type all Case Studies in Times New Roman 12pt font – include the header, title page, and reference page; APA formatting is required in this course. Use at least two reference sources – one is your textbook, and one may be taken from the course or the Grantham Library. Additional references may be obtained from the Internet. Citing your references by using parenthetical citations (in-text citations) is a skill that each student must demonstrate in this course.