Blog # 10 Ethical Considerations to Justice

Ethical Considerations to Justice

     Our world is filled with villains and it’s very tempting to believe that we should go to whatever lengths are necessary to stop them from doing harm.  We have invented increasingly effective ways to combat crime and terrorism, yet along with our advances come the inevitable and unintended consequences. When asked whether you could accept new tools to combat crime even if they severely erode our 4^th amendment rights to privacy it may be easy to think that indeed you could. Your opinion may change however when it is you that has to cope with unfair and ill-considered practices that ruin your quality of life and impede the freedoms you believed as a United States citizen you were entitled to.  We cannot allow unethical means of combatting crime and terrorism to exist because then we all risk becoming the criminals we loathe. 

     Part of what makes our country amazing is the fact that we have the basic rights that every person is entitled to and that even those accused of crimes are ,”innocent until proven guilty.”  In “Minority Report” the technology called precrime actually convicted criminals before they could commit the act that would make them a criminal.  The main character John Anderton is accused of a crime before he even knows of the events that will lead him to the cross roads of making the decision.  He is then pursued for a crime that he has no idea why he will commit and that he indeed has no intention of committing.  How can we without second thought convict someone of a crime they have not even yet committed?  This shares an eerie similarity to the stop and frisk procedure used in New York City that has forced thousands of innocent New Yorkers to undergo humiliating searches of their personal effects in front of their peers for no other reason than looking  “suspicious”.  Being stopped is extremely uncomfortable and scary as a result of the undue force that many police officers tend to use. Over eighty five percent of those stopped are Latino and African-American and many feel they are stopped solely for the crime of being “black” (Stop & Frisk Policy – New York City Police Department).  These individuals can be compared to John Anderton because none of them have committed any crime other than being “suspicious” and yet they are treated as badly as common thugs and stopped with no explanation.  We also have innocent men and woman that are increasingly having their DNA entered into a massive database before they have even been convicted of a crime (F.B.I. and States Vastly Expand DNA Databases Soloman Moore). I believe this is an ugly smear upon our legal system and it’s a shame that they are getting away with it. Not only is this happening often but it is very difficult to have your DNA taken out of this database even after being proven innocent of whatever crime you were accused of or even in the circumstance that your DNA was taken in error.  We cannot allow accused persons to be treated as felons before they have even been convicted of a crime and by allowing it to happen we turn innocent people into victims of a flawed system.

     There are those that feel we should do whatever necessary to combat crime regardless of ethical implications.  They will argue that the inconvenience of the few does not outweigh the importance of the safety of us all.  It’s only natural that they will point to law enforcement’s promises us that these are the best ways to combat crimes. The New York City police department argues that without slightly imposing on our rights that we would live in a much more violent and dangerous city.  When asked about stop and frisk and why there are a disproportionate number of minorities stopped the police department quickly counters that the neighborhoods with the highest crime rates also happen to have a high minority population and that it is inevitable that minorities are going to be stopped more often.  They will cite Philadelphia’s recent surge in crime (Stop and Frisk Policy) to try to paint a picture of what could happen to our city if we limit the stop and frisk practice.  The argument for keeping the stop and frisk policy is clear.  What is not clear is whether people deserve to be treated as criminals even before committing a crime. 

   The stop and frisk procedure is especially worrisome because it gives police officers permission to stop anyone they deem as “suspicious” and search them.  What allows someone to be considered “suspicious” is especially vague and police officers as a result, are legally able to stop a person for whatever reason they wish to with little to no explanation.  To give an officer of the law so much power over another individual is dangerous because as humans police officers are prone to bias and use of undue force.  As someone who has undergone a very humiliating stop and frisk, I can attest that no person deserves to go through what I went through in the name of “crime prevention”.  Just a few years ago, as I ran to my local convenience store in a fervent pursuit of my nicotine fix, three unmarked police cars screeched to a halt at my side. A police officer grabbed my collar and shoved me onto the hood of his car and roughly patted me down.  When I asked with my signature sarcastic flare, “What illegal drugs did you find today officer?”  The officer smacked my rear roughly and laughed calling me a homo while snidely telling me that he found a “sweet ass” and that he bet that I enjoyed the pat down.  I was furious and totally humiliated. I could not believe that someone who was supposed to protect me was actually mocking me and that his fellow officers watching him allowed him to behave in such an unprofessional and cruel manner.  I asked for his badge number and he laughed in my face, got into his vehicle and drove off. No one deserves to be subjected to that type of reprehensible behavior but unfortunately mine is not a unique story.  Thousands of people across America are treated as second class citizens and treated poorly all because they fit the description of a suspicious person.

     We cannot risk the trust of our citizens in their state and their country by imposing on their 4^th amendment rights.  By using unethical means of law enforcement and treating people poorly based on what they may do and not what they have done, takes away one of the qualities that make us an amazing country.  It also gives people in power the license to mistreat and abuse the people they should be protecting because it feeds stereotypes and biases they may already have.  By using unethical means to combat crime we allow people to be degraded and disrespected in the name of justice and turn them into victims.  A justice system must be ethical because we risk submitting ourselves to the same criminality we are fighting.