Running Head: Creating and Implementing an Agency Policy on Ethics
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Cortez Jefferies
Ethical Behavior in Criminal Justice CCJS 380
Ethical Behavior in Criminal Justice
February 09, 2018
INTRODUCTION
In any country or state rather, most disputes are solved and decided within the
judicial system. In my case, I decided on a Federal district court where I was the Chief Judge. US
citizens, under which the district court has jurisdiction over, expect a certain quality of service and
standard coming from the Federal Court system. Due to that fact, it is important for the employees
to act in accordance of some ethical restraints so that integrity aspect of the institution may be
upheld. One way to control the ethical behavior of employees is using ethics policies or an ethical
code of conduct (Miller, 2015).
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ETHICS POLICY
There are two major processes in the development and the establishment of ethical
policies within the US Federal courts. These processes are: drafting the documents and coming up
with an implementation strategy (Nelson, 2008). The ethical policy seeks to put into action
government policies and also ways of assuring that the courts will provide their service morally
and ethically. According to Article III of U.S. Constitution, the jurisdiction of developing and
framing policies for the judicial system lies with the Judicial Conference of the United States
headed by the Chief Justice and having members as representatives from each court within the
federal judiciary of the United States (Neubauer et al., 2017). In the establishment of the ethical
policy within my federal district, as a Chief judge of the federal district court, I would involve a
committee that comprises the district and magistrate judges within the federal district. According
to a whitepaper from Lighthouse (2013), the process I would follow in establishing the ethical
policy is first to gather information internally and externally on what exactly to be included. The
creation and review of the draft would be the next process that would involve the stakeholders
mentioned above. After creation and review of the ethical policy, I would adopt and introduce it
to the employees of the trial courts such as the judges, registrars, and court clerks.
For purposes of ensuring that the employees of a trial court (judicial system) do
accept the ethical policy, it is essential to make sure that the ethical policy is well introduced. The
perception that employees have when a proper introduction is done makes them feel a sense of
adherence to the ethical policy and leading to success in its implementation. Members of the top
management which in this case are the judicial council members should have a large scale
awareness platform that will have high effective rates of delivery. Copies of the ethical policy
could be given to each employee and proper explanation made to make sure they adequately
understand. During recruitment of fresh employees, ...
