Philosophical and Practical Approach for Balancing Issues

Philosophical and Practical Approach for Balancing Issues Student’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Title Date Philosophical and Practical Approach for Balancing Issues In the criminal justice system, there are numerous ethical issues that may arise as law enforcement authorities and other professionals seek to deliver services to the public. Most of these ethical issues are associated with balancing the rights and freedoms of an individual while at the same time ensuring that these rights do not undermine those of the general public (Brink, 2010). Furthermore, there are numerous philosophical and practical approaches that can be used to analyse these issues to ensure that all services offered in the criminal justice system attains a desirable end. This paper critically analyses issues that are applicable to the criminal justice system and how they can be implemented in my personal career. Individual Rights and Public Protection Constitutional theories and law enforcement authorities have endeavoured to understand the most effective means of protecting people’s constitutional rights and balancing them with public protection. Utilitarianism is one of the philosophical approaches that examine the moral significance of an action and if it contributes the greatest good to the greatest number of people (Brink, 2010). John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham were the most significant contributors to this theory which is related to consequentialism. From this approach, it can be argued that individual rights should be protected if their actions do not harm the society but instead benefit the public. In my career in law enforcement, one of the practical ways of implementing this approach is to ensure a person does not misuse his individual rights to harm the public. The second example is to ensure that people do not take advantage of their powers and possessions to undermine the society, and this emphasizes on the importance of self-governance and self-development (Elliot, 2007). For instance, pedestrians have a right to cross the road at a zebra cross and this implies that motorists must obey these rights by allowing pedestrians to cross the road. Balancing Reward and Punishment Societies across the world have developed various mechanisms of reward and punishment to ensure that people are able to live peacefully and the society can function effectively. In criminal justice, there are two general philosophies that can balance between reward and punishment, and they include the utilitarian theory and retributive theory (Stalley, 2012). Utilitarianism holds that any punishment should produce a total good that is greater than the total evil. Conversely, retribution believes that offenders deserve punishment in order to enhance social b...