Media Library

p.64

4
Ethics and
Corrections

© iStockphoto.com/no_limit_pictures

Media Library

CHAPTER 4 Media Library

P R E M I U M V I D E OP R E M I U M V I D E O

C a r e e r V i d e oC a r e e r V i d e o

Payne career video 4.1: Former Drug
Investigator

S AG E N e w s C l i pS AG E N e w s C l i p

SAGE News Clip 4.1: Rikers

SAGE News Clip 4.2: New York
Corrections Officer

Fe a t u r e V i d e oFe a t u r e V i d e o

Schram Personal Perspective video
4.1: Drug Use

J o u r n a l A r t i c l eJ o u r n a l A r t i c l e

Journal Article: 4.1: Ethics in a
Mountain State County Jail

p.65

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Explain the differences between
ethics and morality

• Describe the different ethical
frameworks

• Analyze why people are motivated to
commit ethical violations

• Identify why corrections workers

might be prone to ethics violations
and how such violations might be
prevented

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Test your knowledge about ethics and
corrections by answering the following
questions. Check your answers on page
390 after reading the chapter.

1. Ethics and morality are the same
thing. (True or false?)

2. What is the difference between
deontological and teleological
approaches to ethics?

3. The ethical formalism framework
includes the belief that there is a
universal law that includes clear
rights and wrongs. (True or false?)

4. Utilitarianism follows the principle
that what is good is that which results
in the greatest utility for the greatest
number. (True or false?)

5. Most religions include a universal set
of rights and wrongs. (True or false?)

6. Noble cause corruption is the idea
that it is okay to do the wrong thing if
it is for the right reasons. (True or
false?)

7. A correctional officer who engages in
unethical behavior for personal gain
is practicing official deviance. (True
or false?)

8. There are characteristics of
correctional work that make it more
susceptible to ethical violations. (True
or false?)

A NOVICE BOWS TO
SUBCULTURAL
PRESSURE
Mary K. Stohr

When I first started as a correctional
officer at an adult male prison in
Washington State, I was the second
woman hired (and the first was hired a
month before me). I was relatively well
educated (two bachelor’s degrees) and
had worked at all kinds of jobs since
age 10 but never in corrections. I was
young (25), scared, and naïve. My first
reports were rejected by my sergeant as
too wordy, and I was thought to be too
soft on the inmates. (I called the
inmates Mr. this and Mr. that and
treated them with courtesy.) After about
4 weeks on the job, and in an effort to
help me, a well-meaning sergeant took
me aside and said, “Stohr, I’m worried

about you. I’m not sure you can do this
job. You’ve got to learn to write better
[meaning less and in a more sparse
fashion—he might as well have said,
‘Just the facts, ma’am’], and you’ve got
to treat the

inmates with less respect, or you aren’t
going to make it on this job.”

We were in a back area of the control
room, and he pointed to an inmate at the
control room window—we’ll call him
Mr. Smith. He said, “That man Smith,
he’s a dirty baby raper [which I took to
mean that Smith was a child molester].
He’s been hanging around the window
when you’re here because you are too
nice to him. You’ve got to treat him
differently, or he’ll take advantage of
you.” Essentially, he said that you don’t
have to be mean (he wasn’t that kind of
man), but you shouldn’t be friendly
either.

Well, I took this sergeant’s advice to
heart because I knew he was trying to
help me and there were a few of the
staff at the prison who wanted to see me
and the other woman fail. I also paid
attention to his advice because he was
well respected and had welcomed me to
the job. (He was an uncle of the first
woman hired.) I diligently studied the
reports of other officers and tried to
imitate them. As a result, my reports

were suddenly accepted. But the thing I
did that was small, and that I regret, was
that I treated Mr. Smith with less
respect than he probably deserved; not
that he wasn’t a child molester (I read
his file when I became a counselor and
had access to it), but he was still a
human being, he was in my care, and
how I acted was not professional. The
next time Mr. Smith came to the
window for his meds, I did not meet his
eyes; he became Smith without the Mr.,
and I was quite abrupt with him. This
kind of behavior characterized most of
our interactions from then on. The
sympathetic sergeant witnessed this and
literally patted my back and said,
“Stohr, you’ll be all right,” and that was
it; I was accepted into the subculture, at
least by him, but I wasn’t entirely happy
about it or proud of myself.

p.66

INTRODUCTION: TO DO THE
RIGHT THING!

As you likely gathered from Chapters 2 and 3
on the history of corrections, ethical abuses
have always been a problem for corrections
workers. Their jobs are largely hidden from
public view, somewhat cloaked in secrecy,
with enormous amounts of discretion, and
they deal with people in their care who have

few rights and protections. Moreover, as we
will discuss throughout this book, these are
jobs (e.g., correctional officers, sergeants,
lieutenants, and captains; probation and parole
officers; correctional counselors) that do not
always have professional status in terms of
pay, training, experience, or educational
requirements (these problems all are
particularly true for correctional officers, less
so for the other positions listed here), which
would ensure that the best people are always
hired and that they use their discretion wisely.
Therefore, unqualified people are sometimes
in these demanding correctional jobs, and
because of this they are more likely to make
bad and sometimes unethical choices.

It cannot be overemphasized, however, that
the vast majority of correctional staff, whether
a correctional officer working in an adult
facility or a probation officer working with
youths in the community, are ethical in their
work practices, meaning that they do the right
thing. It is those few bad apples who leave a
negative impression of corrections work and
workers. Luckily, there are things an
organization and its managers and workers
can do to minimize abuse of power and
resources by staff and to correct the
misbehavior of some staff. The development
of codes of ethics, the professionalization of
staff, and the routinization of policies and
procedures all are key to preventing ethical
abuses. In this chapter, we review those
efforts to reduce corruption and abuses in
corrections that might be both unethical and

illegal (see In Focus 4.1), but first we discuss
what ethics is and is not and the source of
ethical and unethical behavior.

DEFINING ETHICS: WHAT IS RIGHT
(AND WRONG)?

As mentioned in the foregoing, ethics is the
study of what is right and wrong, and to be
ethical is to practice in your work what is
“right” behavior. But you might ask (rightly!),
“What is right behavior?” In a larger sense it
is what is legal (what the law is), and in an
organizational sense it is what is legal, too,
but also what is allowed and not allowed
according to codes of ethics and policies and
procedures of that workplace. So a person
could sexually harass others in the workplace
(e.g., make negative comments about them or
undermine their work because of their
gender), but this behavior, although unethical
and perhaps prohibited by the workplace code
of ethics and policies and procedures, might
not rise to the level of illegal behavior.

Morality, we should note, is not the same as
ethics because it concerns what is right or
wrong in the personal sphere, whereas ethics
is concerned with the professional sphere.
People tend to base their beliefs about what is
right or wrong, ethical or unethical, and moral
or immoral on what they have learned from
any number of sources. For instance, it is not
difficult to figure out what is the right thing to
do in the case of the death of Jason Echevarria
(as showcased in the In Focus 4.2 box)

because what we have learned from our
family, schools, religious teachings,
workplace policies, and other sources has
helped us to determine our own sense of right
and wrong in such instances.

p.67

IN FOCUS 4.1

A Lack of Ethics: Florida’s YSI
Private Prisons for Youths

In Florida, all of the juvenile prisons in
the state are operated by private
companies, and Youth Services
International (YSI), a for-profit
company owned by former hotelier
James F. Slattery, operates about 9% of
them (Kirkham, 2013, p. 1). YSI also
operates detention centers and boot
camps. Slattery’s company has been
able to secure these contracts and many
others in other states such as Georgia,
Maryland, Nevada, New York, and
Texas, worth more than $100 million in
the Florida contracts alone, despite the
fact that the Department of Justice has
investigated complaints about them in
several of these states. Auditors in
Maryland found that YSI workers have
encouraged fighting between inmates,
and staff reportedly routinely fail to
report “riots, assaults and claims of
sexual abuse” (Kirkham, 2013, p. 2). A

Bureau of Justice report
indicated that a YSI facility in Palm
Beach, Florida, had the “highest rate of
reported sexual assaults out of 36
facilities reviewed in Florida”
(Kirkham, 2013, p. 2). YSI had only 9%
of the state contracts for youth beds in
the state of Florida, but it had 15% of
the cases of excessive force and injured
youth (Kirkham, 2013, p. 8). Local
public defender offices and the Southern
Poverty Center have complained
about the handling of youths and
conditions at YSI facilities, with little
response from the state. In an
investigation by a Huffington Post
reporter, where official records were
reviewed and former employees were
interviewed, Kirkham (2013) found the
following:

• Staff underreported fights and
assaults to avoid scrutiny and the
possible loss of contracts.

• Staff abused youths in the facilities
by hitting and choking them,
sometimes to the point of fracturing
bones.

• Turnover of staff was high.

• Food was restricted and prepared
incorrectly or in an unsanitary
manner, and youths were
encouraged to gamble with others to
win their food portions.

When the reporter asked why, with this
dismal record of care, YSI was
continually offered contracts, the
answer he received from those
concerned about the treatment of
juveniles both inside and outside the
state of Florida was that YSI supported
the political campaigns of Florida’s and
other states’ politicians with hefty
donations. The company has donated
more to politicians in Florida than two
of the largest companies in the state,

donating more than $400,000 to
state candidates and committees
over the last 15 years, according to
the HuffPost’s review. The
recipient of the largest share of
those dollars was the Florida
Republican Party, which took in
more than $276,000 in that time.
Former Florida Senate President
Mike Haridopolos, an avid
supporter of prison privatization,
received more than $15,000 from
company executives during state
and federal races. (Kirkham, 2013,
p. 6)

According to sources cited in the article
(Kirkham, 2013), margins are narrow in
the operation of correctional facilities
(i.e., there is not a lot of “fat” in
publicly operated prisons or jails), so if
private prison companies want to make
money for their owners and investors, it

means that they need to cut staff pay or
benefits, slash programming, or feed
people less, and it appears that all three
of these things are happening at YSI
facilities, indicating unethical (if not
illegal) behavior by politicians,
company managers, and correctional
officers on the line.

Discussion Questions

1. Based on the above narrative, what
factors led to the abuses reported in
the YSI facilities?

2. What steps can be taken to reduce
the incidence of such abuses in like
facilities?

3. How is staffing tied up in the nature
and amount of the abuse?

p.68

ETHICAL FOUNDATION FOR
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

It is not clear how much of an ethical
foundation most humans are born with,
although it is clear that several institutions try
to instill one in their members. The family is
likely the most influential social institution to
inculcate ethics and morality. Educational
institutions, both K–12 schools and colleges,

all in some way or another—and usually in
many ways—discuss what is right and wrong
in many different situations. Diverse religions
all convey a sense of right and wrong, and a
key concept emanating from many of them is
the golden rule, or “do unto others as you
would have them do unto you.” Other
institutions—such as the military, social and
professional clubs, even kids’ sports teams,
and of course the work environment itself—
all strive to instill a moral or ethical
framework in their members. The larger
culture and life experiences doubtless also
contribute to one’s sense of right and wrong.

Much of the research on ethics also reviews
the theoretical bases for decisions involving
ethics (Braswell, McCarthy, & McCarthy,
1991; Pollock, 1994, 1998, 2010; Rohr, 1989;
R. Solomon, 1996). The philosophical
touchstones that are referenced as guides to
human decision making are ethical formalism,
utilitarianism, religion, natural law, the ethics
of virtue, the ethics of care, and egoism.

Moral behavior is shaped by both
deontological and teleological ethical systems,
and these touchstones are subsets of them.
Deontological ethical systems are
concerned with whether the act itself is good,
and teleological ethical systems are
focused on the consequences of the act. If the
act itself is moral or ethical, then someone
who is guided by a deontological framework
is not concerned about the consequences of
the act. It is enough to just act in a moral

© iStockphoto.com/Easylight

PHOTO 4.1: A correctional officer
opens a gate for an inmate. The security
of an institution relies on the vigilance of
officers’ closing and locking gates.

fashion. Someone who is guided by a
teleological ethical system does not care so
much about the rightness or wrongness of the
act but instead cares about whether the
consequences of the act are good. Pollock
(1998, 2010) defined the ethical frameworks
that derive from these ethical systems in her
book Ethics in Crime and Justice: Dilemmas
and Decisions.

ETHICAL FORMALISM

Pollock (1998) defined ethical formalism
as “what is good is that which conforms to the
categorical imperative” (p. 48). Under this
system, there is the belief that there is a
universal law that includes clear rights and
wrongs. The philosopher Immanuel Kant
(1774–1804) noted that there is a categorical

United States Geological Survey

imperative requiring that each person act as he
or she would like all others to act (very much
like the golden rule mentioned in the
foregoing). Kant also believed that people
must seek to be guided by reason in their
decision making. Ethical formalism falls
under a deontological system because the
focus is on the act and its rightness (or
wrongness) rather than on the consequences
of the act and their goodness (or badness). It is
a position that does not account for gray areas;
an act is either right or wrong. So some acts,
such as murder, lying, and stealing, are always
wrong even when the end of these acts is
good.

p.69

IN FOCUS 4.2

Mentally Ill Inmate Dies at
Rikers

PHOTO 4.2: An aerial view of the
Rikers Island jail complex.

In a series of articles appearing in the
New York Times, reporter Michael
Schwirtz documented the abuse and
neglect suffered by mentally ill inmates
incarcerated in the Rikers Island jails
(Schwirtz, 2014a, 2014b). Rikers Island
jails are a complex of 10 jails on an
island in the East River of New York
City. Since 2009, 20 officers from
Rikers have been prosecuted for assaults
on inmates. In mid-March 2014, a
mentally ill inmate died from being left
in an overheated cell at Rikers. But the
particular subject of these articles was a
25-year-old inmate named Jason
Echevarria, who was diagnosed with
bipolar disorder. He was placed in a
special mental health unit at Rikers
because of his diagnosed mental illness
and because he had behavioral problems
when in the general population of the
jail. He had a record of attempted
suicides while incarcerated at Rikers
(Schwirtz, 2014a, 2014b).

SAGE News Clip
SAGE News Clip 4.1: Rikers

Because there were problems with raw
sewage coming out of toilets, on August
18, 2012, inmates were given a packet
of powdered detergent that they were to
use to clean up their cells (Schwirtz,
2014a, 2014b). By policy, inmates were
supposed to be given detergent that was
diluted by several gallons of water, but
an inexperienced officer instead gave
the full packets to inmates. Echevarria
swallowed the toxic detergent, and as a
result his tongue and mouth skin were
severely damaged as he vomited; he
experienced extreme pain and expelled
blood from his mouth over the course of
several hours. A correctional officer
claimed that he responded to Mr.
Echevarria’s cries for help by reporting
his health problems to his captain, who
told the correctional officer not to talk to
him about this again unless the inmate
was dead. Despite this warning, the
correctional officer claimed that he
reported to the captain twice more about
the inmate’s distress and even tried to
call for medical assistance at least once
but was prevented from doing so by the
captain. Both the captain and the officer
came off their shifts without getting any
medical assistance for the inmate.
Echevarria was dead the next morning.

The captain was demoted to an officer
position, was arrested by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and was
prosecuted for violating the civil rights
of Echevarria. The officer was fired and
filed a wrongful termination suit,
disputing the captain’s claim that he was
never told about Echevarria’s health
crisis.

An independent commission studying
Rikers Island recommended on April 2,
2017, that it be shut down over a period
of 10 years (Corasanti, 2017). New
York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was
supportive of this plan, as was the city
council and the state governor. The hope
is to reduce incarceration of those
accused of low-level offenses in the jail
(thus halving the city jail population)
and then to construct five small jails in
each of the five boroughs of the city.

Discussion Questions

1. Why aren’t correctional facilities
well suited to handle the mentally
ill?

2. Instead of incarcerating the mentally
ill, what should public policy be
instead?

3. What advantages and disadvantages
are there to shuttering Rikers Island?

© iStockphoto.com/gece33

PHOTO 4.3: An elaborate cathedral

p.70

UTILITARIANISM

Utilitarianism is defined as “what is good is
that which results in the greatest utility for the
greatest number” (Pollock, 1998, p. 48). So
morality is determined by how many people
were helped by the act. The philosopher
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) believed that
people will do a “utilitarian calculus”
regarding how much pleasure or pain a given
act will garner, and they will act on that to
maximize pleasure. But when one’s pleasure
conflicts with the greater good for society,
then one must bow to the greater good under a
utilitarian perspective. Because utilitarianism
is focused on the end—whether it is moral or
immoral or is ethical or unethical—achieved
by an act, it falls under the teleological
system.

RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE

front, symbolic of the wealth and artistry
devoted to religious practice over the
centuries.

People who employ a religious
perspective to guide their decisions believe
that “what is good is that which conforms to
God’s will” (Pollock, 1998, p. 48). This is a
perspective that weighs what is right or wrong
based on one’s religion and covers all facets
of living and relationships with others. How
one treats others, how one lives his or her life,
and one’s understanding of the meaning of life
itself all are influenced by this religious
perspective. Under this perspective, both the
means and ends are foci of interest and are
perceived through the lens of what one
believes his or her god or gods would want.
Most religions include a universal set of rights
and wrongs, much like ethical formalism, and
they have, as mentioned already, a form of the
categorical imperative or the golden rule.
Although there is widespread agreement
across religions on some matters, there is
much disagreement about social practices
such as drinking alcohol, dancing, certain
kinds of foods, behavior on holy days, how
appropriate clothing is, and the political and
social status of women and other minorities
such as members of LGBTI (lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, and intersex)
communities.

NATURAL LAW

Adherents of an ethical framework based on
natural law believe that “what is good is
that which is natural” (Pollock, 1998, p. 48).
Behavior is or should be motivated by what is
universally understood to be right and wrong.
Using reason, all humans can figure out these
rights and wrongs. The major difference
between a natural law believer and someone
who is guided by a religious perspective is
that in the latter case the supreme being(s) is
the one who determines what is right and
wrong, whereas under a natural law
perspective these rights and wrongs are just
clear and knowable through reason. Under
this perspective, we know what truth and
decency are, and so we just need to act on our
natural inclination in that direction. These
natural laws about what is right and wrong are
believed to be cross-cultural and true over
time; they are not relative to time or place.
Moreover, out of these natural laws flow
natural rights such as those accorded to
citizens under the Constitution of the United
States.

p.71

ETHICS OF VIRTUE

Believers in the ethics of virtue think that
“what is good is that which conforms to the
golden mean [the middle ground between
positions]” (Pollock, 1998, p. 48). Instead of
focusing on the nature of an action, the
question here is whether the person is virtuous
or good. The end to be achieved is to live a

good and moral life by performing virtuous
acts. Such virtues include “thriftiness,
temperance, humility, industriousness, and
honesty” (Pollock, 1998, p. 43). Models of
virtue provide examples for those interested in
living with integrity and according to a code
of ethics.

ETHICS OF CARE

Relatedly, an ethics of care is centered on
good acts. It is a deontological perspective.
Those who subscribe to this framework
believe that “what is good is that which meets
the needs of those concerned” (Pollock, 1998,
p. 48). Under this perspective, the care and
concern for others is paramount. This is a
perspective that is regarded as more
“feminine” because it is believed that women,
as a group, are more attuned to the needs of
others. Carol Gilligan found in her research on
moral development that women’s perspective
differs from men’s perspective in this area
(Gilligan, 1982). Women are more likely to be
concerned about the care of others as guiding
how they behave. Peacemaking and
restorative justice are thought to derive from
the ethics-of-care framework.

EGOISM

The last ethical framework that Pollock
(1998) mentioned is one based on the
individual—namely, egoism. Under this
framework, the needs of the self are most
important, so acting to satisfy one’s own

wants and needs under this framework is
acting ethically. Because the act is the focus
here, egoism falls under the deontological
perspective. Even when acting on behalf of
others, it is believed that one is acting out of
enlightened egoism, or helping and caring for
others so they will do the same for you when
you are in need of assistance.

WHY PEOPLE BEHAVE
UNETHICALLY

Despite the influence of these ethical
frameworks, there are several reasons why
people behave unethically. The most obvious,
and perhaps the most common, reason is for
personal gain or out of selfishness. For
instance, the owner of YSI, which manages
private prisons for juveniles in Florida, clearly
benefits financially from cutting staff salaries
and inmate food (this must be unethical,
right?), and not surprisingly the result is
poorly operated and, at times, dangerous
facilities (see In Focus 4.1). If the captain
supervising the Rikers Island jail mental
health unit when Echevarria died did what he
is accused of doing—ignoring the desperate
health needs of an inmate—then he behaved
both criminally and unethically for selfish
reasons; he did not want to be bothered (see In
Focus 4.2 box). The remedy for such a
motivation is multifaceted and is discussed
momentarily.

SAGE News Clip

SAGE News Clip 4.2: New York
Corrections Officer

OFFICIAL DEVIANCE

Another reason people in corrections might
behave unethically is official deviance.
Official deviance was defined by Lee and
Visano (1994) as

p.72

actions taken by officials which violate
the law and/or the formal rules of the
organization, but which are clearly
oriented toward the needs and goals of
the organization, as perceived by the
official, and thus fulfill certain informal
rules of the organization. (p. 203)

ETHICAL ISSUE

What Would You
Do?

You are a new manager (2 weeks on the
job) of a public correctional institution
(jail) that has experienced several ethical
crises during the last year. Your jail has
been sued twice successfully during the
last year for overcrowding and neglect of
the mental health needs of inmates. You
were hired to “clean up” the ethical
environment of the facility, although you
already recognize that the staff subculture
in the jail is intransigent and resistant to
change. What steps would you take to
transform this jail to accomplish the
desired change? What resistance do you
expect to encounter, and how do you
think it can be overcome?

Lee and Visano (1994) studied officials’
behavior in both the United States and
Canada, and they found that many deviant
acts by criminal justice actors are not
committed for personal gain but rather are
committed to help the organization or to be in
compliance with subcultural goals. If the
subculture values secrecy and protection of
fellow officers, as is true for subcultures in
corrections, then one might be called on to lie,
even on the witness stand and under oath, to
protect an officer when he or she is charged
with wrongdoing (Stohr & Collins, 2014). The
important point here is that the organizational
member who lies or engages in other acts of
official deviance gains nothing from engaging
in the deviance; it is the organization or other

organizational members who benefit. The
penalty for organizational members who
refuse to engage in official deviance might be
shunning, harassment, or even firing for
unsubstantiated reasons. The remedies to
reduce official deviance are noted in the
following (after the discussion of noble cause
corruption).

NOBLE CAUSE CORRUPTION

A third reason why criminal justice workers
and corrections workers, in particular, might
engage in unethical behavior might be that
they are motivated by noble cause corruption.
Crank and Caldero (2000) defined the noble
cause for police officers as a

profound moral commitment to make the
world a safer place to live. Put simply, it
is getting bad guys off the street. Police
believe they’re on the side of angels and
their purpose in life is getting rid of bad
guys. (p. 35)

Crank and Caldero (2000) identified two
noble cause themes that explain police officer
behavior: “the smell of the victim’s blood”
and “the tower” (p. 35). What they mean by
the smell of the victim’s blood is that police
officers are motivated to act to protect and
save victims. But in the course of trying to
protect victims, they may step over an ethical
line and lie, plant evidence, or abuse force so
as to catch the “bad guy” by whatever means.
And it is always the ends (e.g., catching the

“bad guy”) that are more important than the
means (e.g., acting professionally and
ethically) with noble cause corruption.

What Crank and Caldero (2000) meant by
“the tower” is that police officers, when
confronted with a shooter in a tower, will run
to the tower (they will act in the face of
danger) when everyone else is running from
it. Because they are inclined to run to the
tower—metaphorically at least—and also
because their job requires that they act in
dangerous situations, they may cross the
ethical and legal line by overreacting or
making rash decisions. They will “run to the
tower” because they want to make things
right. Crank and Caldero (2011) and others
(e.g., Bartollas & Hahn, 1999; O’Connor,
2001) think that the police are motivated by
their desire to make the world right. They tend
to see the world in black and white, and when
a suspect interferes with this perception the
police might engage in unethical behavior
because it is inspired by acting in the cause of
“rightness.” The problem is that the police are
not always right, and they cannot always see
what is right (as with all of us).

…