Leadership Approach essay
For all professionals working in criminal justice, ethics and moral qualities play a very important role. Law is directly interrelated with ethics, and the presence of ethical principles is necessary for proper interactions with criminals and innocent people, for decision-making and interpreting the law, for resolving moral dilemmas and ambiguous questions. There are specific ethical challenges and specific skills required for different criminal justice professions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the key challenges aced by a police chief or a county sheriff in a large city, to consider key skills required for such criminal justice professionals, to explain the role of ethics, character and virtue for a police chief in a large city, to predict the role of ethical decision-making in the future of the criminal justice profession and to generate recommendations regarding the use of ethics for improving decision-making in criminal justice.
Primary challenges of a police chief in a large city
According to Rainguet and Dodge (2001), one of the key challenges in the work of a police chief in a large city is the presence of personnel-related issues. These issues were named among the causes of leaving the position of a police chief by 40% of respondents (Rainguet and Dodge, 2001). Key personnel-related issues include the lack of integrity among employees, unethical behavior, corruption and issues related to disciplinary actions. Human resource challenges might create significant challenges for a police chief or a county sheriff in a large city.
Another notable source of challenges for police chiefs and the cause of police chief resignation is the presence of political difficulties (Rainguet and Dodge, 2001). Political difficulties named by the participants of the study included the lack of support from supervisors and city officials, micromanagement, financial constraints and budget cuts, limited resources, short timelines and strict requirements (Rainguet and Dodge, 2001). The lack of support from political leaders was also noted as an important challenge. Overall, more than 70% of participants named political challenges as a reason for departure (Rainguet and Dodge, 2001).
Third major challenge for police chiefs in large cities is maintaining the balance between addressing existing operational priorities and foreseeing future community needs. Chiefs from large police departments emphasize the importance of monitoring the community, forecasting its needs and addressing potential problems (Kitzman & Stanard, 1999); at the same time, police chiefs should ensure that major operational priorities such as detecting and preventing crimes, protecting the life and property of citizens are kept in focus.
Key skills required of a police chief in a large city
According to the study of Krimmel & Lindenmuth (2001), the skill that strongly correlates with the performance of a police chief is leadership, closely interrelated with accountability. It is notable that the majority of respondents who demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities were “groomed for leadership” and completed FBINA (Krimmel & Lindenmuth, 2001). Such manifestations of leadership as serving as a role model for other police officers, leading by example, providing guidance and treating others with dignity and respect were identified as especially important for police chiefs in large departments (Kitzman & Stanard, 1999).
One more essential skill for police chiefs is communication. Kitzman & Stanard (1999) found out that police chiefs in the departments of all sizes found it important to be able to share information with subordinates in an efficient way, to establish contacts with other agencies and coordinate joint activities. Furthermore, the third essential skill for a police chief is management (Kitzman & Stanard, 1999): police chiefs need to manage the resources of the department, solve human resource issues, perform budgeting functions, monitor operations and adjust the goals and objectives of the department.
The role of ethics, virtue and character for a police chief in a large city
The analysis of major challenges in the work of a police chief and key skills required of a police chief in a large city shows that ethics, character and virtues are essential for a police chief in order to be efficient. Indeed, a police chief needs to demonstrate integrity, ethical decision-making and strong moral values in order to serve as the role model for other officers, to resolve human resource issues and to lead by example. A police chief should also demonstrate such virtues as loyalty and justice in order to be the example leader of the department.
Furthermore, communications of a police chief also require strong ethical background since a police chief might need to address political challenges, resolve conflicts and ethical issues within the department, etc. Managerial functions performed by a police chief should be backed up by an ethical framework and moral obligations; otherwise, the police chief might be vulnerable to corruption and similar challenges, and will be unable to perform the essential functions. Therefore, all key skills of a police chief require the presence of moral values, integrity and ethical decision-making.
The impact of ethical decision-making on the criminal justice profession in the future
In the future, the role of ethics and ethical decision-making in the criminal justice profession will continue to increase. First of all, the development of information technology and the ease of sharing information will make the actions of all criminal justice professionals more public (Pollock, 2011), so criminal justice professionals will have to demonstrate accountability and leadership to the public during all operations.
Secondly, the interrelatedness of social institutions is also increasing, and it is likely that the level of interaction between criminal justice professionals and the representatives of other social institutions will increase (Cordner, 2013). In the context of the anticipated cooperation and collaboration, criminal justice professionals should ensure that key goals of the criminal justice system such as protecting the lives of citizens, their property, detecting and preventing crime are pursued. Criminal justice professionals will have to face more ethical dilemmas regarding the distribution of resources, information sharing and trust. In this context, criminal justice professionals will often have to rely on ethical decision-making to make proper choices. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the role of ethics and ethical decision-making in criminal justice will increase in the future.
Using ethics to improve decision-making
It is possible to develop several recommendations for using ethics to improve decision-making in criminal justice. The first and foremost recommendation is to develop a written Code of Ethics at the city or county level and at the departmental level. The Code of Ethics should include standards of acceptable conduct and measures of unacceptable conduct. The Code of Ethics can be used for resolving ethically ambiguous situations and for making ethically justified decisions. The presence of a unified written Code of Ethics used as an ethical standard will greatly improve the quality of ethical decision-making in ambiguous situations.
Secondly, it is recommended to introduce ethics training for criminal justice professionals. Ethics training should incorporate many practical situations where moral dilemmas emerge, and it is important that criminal justice professionals practice ethical decision-making on real-life examples. Training sessions will improve the skills of ethical decision-making and increase the quality of decisions made by the criminal justice professionals.
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