Ethics In justice

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Ethics in its entirety is a broad subject. In the criminal justice system, ethics guide the justice officers on the criminality or innocence of anyone. This, therefore, requires the employment of high standards in the decisions made thereof. The movie in question, “training day” by Denzel Washington. The movie clearly depicts some ethical and grossly unethical actions taken by the officers in the movie.

The movie follows one officer of the Los-Angeles police department for a day. One of them is a veteran narcotics officer while the other is on his first day in the narcotics division. The movie is set in an inner-city Los-Angeles notorious for gangs, drugs and violence.

The movie has depicted and inner-city subculture owing to the feeling of marginalization due to the poverty line differences. The setting of the movie is predominantly black and Hispanic with a white minority. Violence and inner-city code is used, and it is depicted by the main character over the movie.

The violence with which Alonzo forces his protégé cop to smoke week is the first taste of the more violence depicted throughout the movie. When the two officers encounter an attempted rape, they do not arrest the culprits but instead suggest the causing would deal with them. According to Elijah Anderson, he describes this as the “code of the streets.” His explanation of the “code of the streets” is a strict observance of interpersonal respect between residents and even gangs. There is also strict regulation on inter-gang relations

A subculture set on the inner-city, dressing is a main factor. Alonzo is dressed in a quite informal way to reinforce his fitting in the environment. He also resides in the projects to reinforce his stature as one of them.

There also exists a sub-culture within the movie setting that of police. This one is set on the rogue cops using the law to their economic advantage while abetting criminals. This one operates entirely on the code of secrecy, and its result is the flourishing drug trade in the inner-city. Alonzo is the depiction of this sub-culture and included his supervisors “the three wise men.

There are several stressors in this subculture, in the movie setting, poverty is a key one that has led to the development of the subculture. The endemic poverty in the subculture has led to the development of violence in the form of gangs. Poverty has lead to the idea of marginalization of the residents resorting to instilling their own code of respect. They site poverty and large families as an excuse to engaging in activities that they do like drug and gun trafficking.

Alonzo also depicts the character of a man under pressure to return the money he owes to dangerous Russians. This provides his stressor and, therefore, need to extort money from drug criminals. Violence is also a major stressor that has led to this subculture. Along with poverty it stands on its own and anchored in the code of the subculture. Violence is used to protect drug selling turfs and hence for violence to instill “respect” as a way to show it.

These stressors also promote the sense of untouchable in the main character Alonzo. In the last scene where he is arrested, he declares that e is untouchable and even solicits the crowd to assault the arresting officer. This shows the thriving nature of the stressors and the effects thereof. They have also led to the acceptance of corruption who are ok with Alonzo’s tactics going against every bone of ethics there exists.

The film shows the lead character Denzel show complete disregard to the established ethics in the police department. The use of violence and the use of drugs is a good example. His failure to arrest the homeless men who attempted to rape a young girl is an absolute disregard to the very basic of ethics in the force. His further assault on them is also a complete disregard to the established laws and lack of ethics.

The system of legalism in ethics is disregarded and utterly misused by the law enforcement officer. His use of fake search warrants and arbitrary search and arrest in two instances among many more is a show of the complete disregard to this system of ethics. This system is the basis of the police department and accepted as good ethics, and it is violated.

However, his partner is reluctant and surprised by the actions of Alonzo but is coerced into participating in the illegalities of his partner. In his attempt to arrest, the two homeless guys are rejected by Alonzo who prefers that gang members should deal with the two.

The character Alonzo is largely influenced by the code of the street in shaping his disregard to the system in using the scene of the attempted rape, he makes a judgment that the “street code” would be the best way of punishment for the two. This most likely would lead to death. The development of his character is further complicated by his associations with the Russian mafia a further lack of ethical bearings.

On the other hand, his partner is largely conflicted morally on the actions of his senior. Although he does go along with his antics like taking marijuana and the occasional violent run in with criminals he does redeem himself in the end, He got his moral and ethical act together in the last scene where he arrests Alonzo and with all the moral authority walks out to a crowd tired of his antics.

It is also evident in the movies that the criminals are well known to the law enforcers. This is goes to show the complex nature of the” street code”. In some cases, there are other places some comes would not dare go. This is places that the character Alonso is more familiar and accepted. He knows the people and uses his authority to undermine them and extort them this; however, is his downfall, the last scene shows him get “street justice”, what he advocated for all along. Had he used legalism to its last letter he would’ve never found himself in that predicament.

The movie shows the integral value of ethics in criminal justice. The exposition on life in the violence inner-city subculture helps break the walls on the barriers that result in the formation of such a subculture that bases its self on everything that is wrong in the American society.

References

HYPERLINK “http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc235ch.28.html” www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc235ch.28.html chapter 28