The admission of Jailhouse witnesses in court proceedings and the benefit it provides to both the prosecutor and the witness has led to an increase in perjury, as convicts search for a way out, such as the case of Badpenny. Active and passive acceptance of the practice by prosecutors allows this crime to grow. It is further exacerbated by the inability of the defendant to gather ample credibility, courage, and moral authority to deny or even question the statements of the witnesses. Most of the defendants who go down on grounds of fabricated witness statements are dependent on public attorneys, whose job in defending their clients is never thorough. There are many implications to this trend. First, many unlawful imprisonments are occurring around the nation, convicting innocent people. Rather than reforming and remodeling the society, this trend only corrupts and bends the moral fabric of the society even more.
Wrongful convictions resulting from corrupt jailhouse informants also continue to bend the provisions of criminal justice. As prosecutors realize the value of these informants, they continue to utilize them even more boldly regardless of their impact on the defendants, and the dependence grows, pushing the community further from justice. The prosecutors care less about the consequences because if caught, they can argue that it did not occur ‘knowingly,” and throwing the witness under the bus. This was the case in 1999 in Tulia Texas when many black defendants ended up in jail under perjured testimony. Lastly, jailhouse informants exchange one crime for another, offering a reward to a criminal for the suffering of the innocent. When lazy prosecutors d not want to do their work, they are using this avenue as well as a plea bargain to prove their legitimacy. Unfortunately, as Glancy and Simpson (2018) illustrate, jailhouse informants are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions.
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Occupational Subculture among Correction Officers
The occupational subculture among correctional officers makes treating convicts and defendants as some form of lesser humans who do not deserve humanitarian treatment. According to Glancy and Simpson (2018), this culture is defined by a mixture of suspicion, fear, contempt, and hostility, regardless of whether one is innocent. To them, everyone in their care is a dangerous criminal mind who should be handled with caution. Fessinger et al. (2020) further argue that the correction officers feel the urge to paint the corrections department as a hostile environment where everyone should first consider before committing a crime. Prisoner mistreatment results from this culture and is a barrier to true justice. The prison has a high danger potential for correction officers. However, having unreasonable and conflicting expectations in such work environments only makes it worse for both parties. Jenkins et al. (2021) term it as one of the reasons why correctional officers have one of the highest turnover rates amongst all other professions.
Correction officers have to adhere to a code of ethics that guides their profession and responsibilities. They are governed by the principles of discipline, truthfulness vigilance, judiciousness, and respect for human rights (Fessinger et al., 2020). Unfortunately, their occupational subculture dominates over this code of ethics, especially when it is equated to past experiences and unlikeable interactions with the convicts. The most appropriate ethical system for correction officers is deontology, which demands one to do the right thing because it is only right to do so. People should abide by the rules, standards, and ethical foundations on which their society is built, and deal with the consequences later (Wetmore et al., 2020). When the right thing is done consistently, the consequences become manageable. Prison officers should treat their subjects in a deontological correct manner. They should respect them, serve them and live amicably with them. It is their ethical responsibility to do so.
References
Fessinger, M. B., Bornstein, B. H., Neuschatz, J. S., DeLoach, D., Hillgartner, M. A., Wetmore, S. A., & Douglass, A. B. (2020). Informants v. Innocents: Informant Testimony and Its Contribution to Wrongful Convictions. Cap. UL Rev. , 48 , 149.
Glancy, G. D., & Simpson, A. (2018). Ethics dilemmas in correctional institutions. Ethics challenges in forensic psychiatry and psychology practice , 101.
Jenkins, B. D., Le Grand, A. M., Neuschatz, J. S., Golding, J. M., Wetmore, S. A., & Price, J. L. (2021). Testing the forensic confirmation bias: How jailhouse informants violate evidentiary independence. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology , 1-12.
Wetmore, S. A., Neuschatz, J. S., Roth, J., Jenkins, B. D., & Le Grand, A. M. (2020). Incentivized to testify: Informant witnesses. In Advances in Psychology and Law (pp. 23-49). Springer, Cham.
