Ethics are significant for any person in a profession or the system of justice. Selective Crime Occurrence Reduction Enforcement (SCORE) unit had an incidence where three of its officers were involved in criminal activities. They were found guilty of stealing properties of individuals and money from the homes they were conducting their search warrants. This was a violation of the constitutional rights and freedoms of people by taking their property, conducting unauthorized searches and seizing property. They were also found guilty of taking government property. All these acts are unethical behaviors unaccepted in their profession.
SCORE is a unit of the police department of Kansas City. The SCORE unit is mandated with controlling of the operations of patrol including the use of surveillance and patrol in the reduction of criminal activities (SCORE Unit, 2015). Both leaders in the Department and Unit have the roles of assessing the integrity and ability of their police officers concerning their work activities. This assessment should be conducted in the limelight in cases where the officers are involved in criminal activities.
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The leaders contributed to the behaviors of the unit by failing to detect the unethical actions by the police officers in advance. The system of criminal justice did not enhance the ethical relationship between the community that they were serving which trusted them with their safety and lives and with the department hence the failure of the system (KCTV5 News, 2012). Instead of involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Kansas Police Department would have caught the officers involved in the crimes and punish them in the department level. Some actions would have been used to change the consequences, and they include; maintaining a good relationship with the community by ensuring their safety, the department should be conducting rigorous investigations about their police and also ensuring that all officers know the ethical behaviors they are expected to demonstrate.
In conclusion, ethics are necessary because the actions of one person have outcomes or consequences that affect not only the one who does the action, but also other people. People who are endowed with the responsibility of keeping the community safe and protecting their lives should have ethical behaviors of high standards since the community trusts them. The importance of these ethics in the system of criminal justice is the provision of procedures on how to assess and judge the behaviors of other individuals.
References
KCTV5 News. (2012, January 31). Retrieved from: http://www.kctv5.com/story/16537378/2-kck-officers-pleading-guilty .
SCORE Unit. (2015). Retrieved from Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. Retrieved from: http://web.archive.org/web/20150215084524/http:/kckpd.org/Services/SCORE
