Discretion, Community, and Correctional Ethics

Some two million Americans are in jail or in prison. Except for the occasional exposé, what happens to them is hidden from the rest of us. Is it possible to develop and instill a professional ethic for prison personnel that, in partnership with formal regulatory constraints, will mediate relations among officers, staff, and inmates, or are the failures of imprisonment as an ethically-constrained institution so deeply etched into its structure that no professional ethic is possible? The contributors to this volume struggle with this central question and its broader and narrower ramifications. Some argue that despite the problems facing the practice of incarceration as punishment, a professional ethic for prison officers and staff can be constructed and implemented. Others, however, despair of imprisonment and even punishment, and reach instead for alternative ways of healing the personal and communal breaches constituted by crime. The result is a provocative contribution to practical and professional ethics.

John Kleinig is professor of philosophy, and director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics, at Jon Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Margaret Leland Smith is adjunct professor, and senior researcher at the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics, at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY.

Part 1 Foreword Part 2 Preface Chapter 3 1 Professionalizing Incarceration Part 4 Response: The Shimmer of Reform: Prospects for a Correctional Ethic Chapter 5 2 The Possibility of a Correctional Ethic Part 6 Response: The Case for Abolition and the Reality of Race Chapter 7 3 Prison Abuse: Prisoner-Staff Relations Part 8 Response: Correctional Ethics and the Courts Chapter 9 4 Health Care in the Corrections Setting: An Ethical Analysis Part 10 Response: First, Do No Harm Part 11 Response: Brokering Correctional Health Care Chapter 12 5 Ideology into Practice/Practice into Ideology: Staff-Offender Relationships in Institiutional and Community Corrections in an Era of Retribution Part 13 Response: Moral Reckoning and the Social Order of the Prison Part 14 Response: The Path of Least Resistance: Sexual Exploitation of Female Offenders as an Unethical Corollary to Retributive Ideology and Correctional Practice Chapter 15 6 Management-Staff Relations: Issues in Leadership, Ethics, and Values Part 16 Response: The Ethical Dilemmas of Corrections Managers: Confronting Practical and Political Complexity Part 17 Additional Resources Part 18 Indexes Part 19 About Contributors