A criminal justice professional must maintain high levels of integrity at all times; to do anything less could result in issues in that could compromise the individual’s credibility, creating undesired professional pitfalls for the individual and even for others around them. By working to review some of the issues that could result in a loss or compromise of one’s credibility, it will be possible to see the best ways to avoid such situations in order to continue to remain professionally upstanding. In order for an individual to remain credible within the field of criminal justice, they must maintain high levels of honesty, ethics, and adherence to all associated policies and procedures.
The credibility of the individual is one of the inherent principles of the criminal justice system. Officers of the law should not lie, regardless of their reasoning, and they should most especially not do so under oath, for any reason. The sad fact of the matter is that such an occurrence happens daily; officers lie to obtain warrants, and they lie for convictions (Alexander, 2013). If an officer of the law were to utilize their power for ill, engaging in dishonest acts, the level of trust within the individual, within the officer, and with the system starts to break down; if no individual feels that they will be able to receive an honest answer from an officer, they will become dismissive of the force, resulting in an eventual breakdown in the system. The levels of distrust that such misconduct raises when brought to light, and the shock that results from the seeming ease at which such misconduct occurs, gives rise to a whole new set of questions. Prior to a system failure, however, we start to see the system spin wildly out of control, with thousands of individuals pleading guilty to crimes that they did not commit because they “know that the odds of a jury’s believing their word over a police officer’s are slim to none” (Alexander, 2013).
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The handling of evidence is another area that has the potential to lead to a slippery slope. If the chain of command is not followed, if the evidence is not properly maintained, it may cause issues for the entire criminal justice system, from the victims of criminal activity all the way down through the sentencing and conviction process. Officers that are involved in evidence planting and theft of evidence work to undermine the system’s credibility causing issues not only for the case at hand, but calling into question all previous actions of the individual during their criminal justice career; such concerns arise as a result of a lack of ethical considerations on the part of the individual (The Chattanoogan, 2013; Caron & Fay, 2013).
Another issue that results in decreased credibility is the falsification of documents, one of “the most common form of police corruption facing the criminal justice system” (Commission Report, 1994). Even if such an occurrence is as a result of the perceived action of attaining legitimate law enforcement ends, when the falsifications are found out, they work to undermine the system as a whole. The “police officer’s word (is the) pillar of our criminal justice system. On the word of a police officer alone a grand jury may indict, a trial jury convict, and a judge pass sentence” (Commission Report, 1994).
In order to avoid such professional pitfalls and work to rebuild the system of trust that is necessary for the criminal justice system to operate effectively, it is the responsibility of the officers themselves to ensure that they always hold ethical considerations as central to all decisions involving “discretion, force, and due process” (The Importance of Ethics in Criminal Justice, p.3). Dishonest actions, even when undertaken in an attempt to do good, are still dishonest, working to reduce the credibility of the criminal justice system as a direct result of a lack of integrity within the criminal justice system. For the system to continue to function, it is necessary for all individuals to maintain the highest standards of honesty and integrity in order for continued credibility to remain possible.
