“What am I supposed to fall back on?” Cultural Literacy in Criminal Justice ethics

Abstract

Thoughts expressed in this article were derived from Thornberry's “Cultural Literacy in Criminology” and Seigel and Zalman's “Cultural Literacy in Criminal Justice.” Given the newness of teaching ethics in criminal justice, this article underscores (a) the role of ethics in criminal justice, (b) cultural literacy in criminal justice ethics, (c) major unethical perspectives in criminal justice that need to be addressed, (d) core areas and core literature that constitute cultural literacy, and (e) a final word about some pitfalls in teaching criminal justice ethics. The core areas were identified as (a) the philosophy of ethics, (b) moral rules and moral judgment, (c) justice theories, (d) ethics of public service, and (e) ethics of criminal justice agencies. Ten teaching sources were selected for each area, and were ethically ordered—alphabetically.