Overview

This textbook looks at the main ethical questions that confront the criminal justice system - legislature, law enforcement, courts, and corrections - and those who work within that system, especially police officers, prosecutors, defence lawyers, judges, juries, and prison officers. John Kleinig sets the issues in the context of a liberal democratic society and its ethical and legislative underpinnings, and illustrates them with a wide and international range of real-life case studies. Topics covered include discretion, capital punishment, terrorism, restorative justice, and re-entry. Kleinig's discussion is both philosophically acute and grounded in institutional realities, and will enable students to engage productively with the ethical questions which they encounter both now and in the future - whether as criminal justice professionals or as reflective citizens.

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9780511806155

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Reviews

'… an outstanding exploration of the tensions that arise between the demands of ordinary morality and the special duties that govern the behavior of various practitioners in criminal justice in virtue of their institutional roles. … I recommend it to non-specialists who hope to be brought up to speed on a set of issues with which they are unfamiliar. Academics and non-academics alike can profit greatly by thinking about the myriad topics examined by Kleinig. … Many fine introductions to criminal justice are available, but no competing book rivals Ethics and Criminal Justice in the depth of philosophical sophistication it devotes exclusively to the ethical issues that govern the behavior of criminal justice practitioners. Kleinig demonstrates what can happen when an excellent philosopher turns his attention to the real world of criminal justice.' Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 'The writing has a care and clarity which places it firmly in the English-speaking tradition of philosophical ethics over the last 70 years. No generalisation remains unqualified, no argument lacks its counter-argument. … The primary use of this book will be for students, but anyone wishing to think through ethical issues in criminal justice will find it a useful and honest exposition of the liberal democratic (but realistic) ethical standpoint which continues largely to define the parameters of policy debate.' Prison Service Journal

'... an outstanding exploration of the tensions that arise between the demands of ordinary morality and the special duties that govern the behavior of various practitioners in criminal justice in virtue of their institutional roles. ... I recommend it to non-specialists who hope to be brought up to speed on a set of issues with which they are unfamiliar. Academics and non-academics alike can profit greatly by thinking about the myriad topics examined by Kleinig. ... Many fine introductions to criminal justice are available, but no competing book rivals Ethics and Criminal Justice in the depth of philosophical sophistication it devotes exclusively to the ethical issues that govern the behavior of criminal justice practitioners. Kleinig demonstrates what can happen when an excellent philosopher turns his attention to the real world of criminal justice.' Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 'The writing has a care and clarity which places it firmly in the English-speaking tradition of philosophical ethics over the last 70 years. No generalisation remains unqualified, no argument lacks its counter-argument. ... The primary use of this book will be for students, but anyone wishing to think through ethical issues in criminal justice will find it a useful and honest exposition of the liberal democratic (but realistic) ethical standpoint which continues largely to define the parameters of policy debate.' Prison Service Journal

Author Information

John Kleinig is Director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics and Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Law and Police Science, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and he holds the Charles Sturt University Chair of Policing Ethics in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Australian National University.

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