POLICE ETHICS – Abstract Mark Lauchs -/- Police are an essential part of the justice system. They are the frontline actors in keeping the peace, social stability and cohesion. Thus good governance relies on honest policing. However, there will always be at least a small group of corrupt police officers, even though Australians are culturally averse to corruption (Khatri, Tsang, & Begley, 2006). There have been many cases where the allegations of police corruption have reached to (...) the highest levels of a state police force (Blanch, 1982) and, in the case of the Fitzgerald Inquiry (Fitzgerald, 1989), ended in a commissioner being convicted of corruption. -/- Any public official who places their own interests before those of the public have corrupted a system in which they are supposed to act as agents of the public, will undermine the good governance of a society (Lauchs, 2007). Police officers attract offers of corruption because of their ability to enforce or ignore the law. Police who are unethical or in financial stress are vulnerable to offers of illicit payments. Longstanding arrangements of corruption within a police branch can lead to a corruption network between police and criminals. Organised police corruption constitutes “social behaviour, conducted in groups within organisations, that is powerful enough to override the officer’s oath of office, personal conscience, departmental regulations and criminal laws.” (Punch, 2000) it is an even greater threat to the community because the damage done has more impact than the sum of the individual acts of corruption. This chapter will discuss the types of police corruption and focus on the organisation as the source of core police culture. -/- . (shrink)

Laboratory safety regulations have been traditionally viewed by its learners and practitioners as a matter of law and policy, which simply requires compliance. A compliance mindset tends be passive and dissociates individuals (or even institutions) from the important reasons and principles underlying the safety rules and regulations, leading to disinterestedness and disdain. I posit that laboratory safety regulations would need to be crafted, presented and taught in a manner that is coupled to, or at least with an emphasis on, research (...) ethics. Learners and practitioners of laboratory safety must be led to fully grasp the ethical underpinnings of the rules and regulations, however perceivably cumbersome or inconvenient the latter may seem. In extended definitions beyond the classical fabrication, falsification and plagiarism, laboratory safety violation (LSV) should indeed be considered a form of research misconduct (RM). A full appreciation of the ethical principles underlying laboratory safety regulations would intuitively make LSVs morally impermissible, and as such defiance would be morally unacceptable. Importantly, LSVs framed as moral transgressions would be equally applied to all perpetrators in terms of culpability regardless of one’s endowment and power status. LSV perpetrators should thus also be punishable in accordance with the federal or institutional laws or bylaws of research ethics and integrity. Pedagogical and content modifications to laboratory safety education to adequately reflect a research ethics emphasis, as well as promotion of epistemic acuity in this regard, would be desirable. (shrink)

A volume in Ethics in Practice Series Editors Robert A. Giacalone, Temple University and Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Louisiana State University Making sure that performance in business enterprise is achieved ethically is no small task. Leaders, managers, and employees at every level of the organization need to utilize systems and processes that support ethical strength, establishing a workplace where responsibility, accountability, and doing the right thing are genuinely valued and practiced. Management can help support ethical performance in workers' daily (...) task actions by underscoring the importance of rules and regulations, while also moving to ensure that employees understand and care about doing what's right. Given that most firms only emphasize compliance in ethics training, there is vast room for additional development. Training people to be less bad is not good enough. With the infusion of mandatory requirements for ethics training programs in some firms and self-imposed initiatives in others, we see a range of deliverables. To advance ethics in practice, a closer look at ethics training in the workplace is warranted. This volume attempts to better understand ethics in organizational settings by taking a focused look at the science of ethics training and best practices, areas for concern, specific techniques, application outcomes, how to cultivate an ethical work environment, and considering where opportunities for additional inquiry reside. Managers and practitioners reading this book will garner specific trends and useful techniques that can inform, guide, and improve their efforts to build ethical awareness and effective ethical decisionmaking within their organizations. Academic scholars will find this book useful, providing insight as to where additional research and empirical work is needed. (shrink)

Police officers must be able to make an accurate appraisal of a lethal encounter and respond with appropriate force to mitigate the threat to their own lives and to the lives of others. Contemporary police deadly force training places the cadet in mock lethal encounters, which are designed to simulate those occurring in the real lives of law enforcement officers. This Reality Base Training is designed to provide cadets with experiences that require their reactions to be (...) within the law, policies and procedures, and ethics while undergoing a very stressful, emotional, and physically dynamic situation . Three police cadets provided written accounts of their deadly force training experiences in the RBT format. The descriptive phenomenological psychological method was used to analyze the data and to synthesize a general psychological structure of their experiences. The results reveal the perceptions, thoughts, feelings and behaviors reflecting the role of consciousness and psychological subjectivity in the participants’ understandings and decision-making in the simulated situations. (shrink)

In this article, we explore some of the roles of cameras in policing in the United States. We outline the trajectory of key new media technologies, arguing that cameras and social media together generate the ambient surveillance through which graphic violence is now routinely captured and circulated. Drawing on Michel Foucault, we suggest that there are important intersections between this video footage and police subjectivity, and propose to look at two: recruit training at the Washington state Basic Law (...) Enforcement Academy and the Seattle Police Department’s body-worn camera project. We analyze these cases in relation to the major arguments for and against initiatives to increase police use of cameras, outlining what we see as techno-optimistic and techno-pessimistic positions. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, we argue for a third position that calls for field-based inquiry into the specific co-production of socio-techno subjectivities. (shrink)

Police training plays a crucial role in the development of police officers. Because the training of police officers combines various educational components and is governed by organizational guidelines, police training is a complex, multifaceted topic. The current study investigates training at six European law enforcement agencies and aims to identify strengths and challenges of current training organization and practice. We interviewed a total of 16 police instructors and seven police (...) coordinators with conceptual training tasks. A thematic analysis was conducted and results organized in the two main themes evident across all six law enforcement agencies: organization of training and delivery of training. Results show that governmental structures and police executive boards are seen as the primary authorities that define the training framework in which police instructors operate. These administrative structures regulate distant and immediate resources, such as available training time, training facilities, equipment, and personnel. Within the confines of available resources and predetermined training frameworks, results indicate that police instructors thoroughly enjoy teaching, creating supportive and motivating learning environments, and applying their personal learning perspectives to training. Nonetheless, police instructors are critical of the level of training they are able to achieve with the available resources. (shrink)

Social justice is a concept we take for granted. We assume that it means using state structures to ensure equality and fairness. But is that true? Or, do state structures of social order actually inhibit creativity, freedom, social welfare, and belonging? This collection broadens the boundaries of the ways we think about what constitutes criminality and interrogates issues of social justice and power in new, innovative and critical ways. The essays examine a wide variety of themes, including the deconstruction of (...) concepts of freedom and equality, notions of criminality and deviance, state regulation of social order, and various aspects of feminist criminology. (shrink)

A model frequently used to implement community‐based research involves engaging local community health workers who are trusted members of the community and familiar with local customs, language, and culture. In Spanish‐speaking communities, the CHWs are also known as promotores de salud (“health promoters”). Depending on the study design and nature of the research, promotores facilitate research through community outreach, instrument design, participant recruitment, intervention delivery, data collection, and other research‐related tasks. In 2000, the National Institutes of Health published a regulation (...) requiring training of “key personnel” named on NIH‐supported research involving human subjects. Regardless of whether promotores are technically designated as key personnel on a particular study, they may benefit from training in research ethics. Unfortunately, the educational programs designed for academic researchers in response to the NIH mandate were poorly aligned with the needs of promotores and not suited for learning about human research ethics applied to the community health setting. For example, many promotores in our California‐Mexico border region are monolingual Spanish speakers who have no formal academic research training. Therefore, we set out to develop a training alternative appropriate to our local CHWs. In this essay, we provide overviews of the relevant instructional design principles and our formative research process, including examples of key findings. (shrink)

Background: As actors with the key responsibility for the protection of human research participants, Research Ethics Committees (RECs) need to be competent and well-resourced in order to fulfil their roles. Despite recent programs designed to strengthen RECs in Africa, much more needs to be accomplished before these committees can function optimally.Objective: To assess training needs for biomedical research ethics evaluation among targeted countries.Methods: Members of RECs operating in three targeted African countries were surveyed between August and November 2007. Before (...) implementing the survey, ethical approvals were obtained from RECs in Switzerland, Cameroon, Mali and Tanzania. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire in English and in French.Results: A total of 74 respondents participated in the study. The participation rate was 68%. Seventy one percent of respondents reported having received some training in research ethics evaluation. This training was given by national institutions (31%) and international institutions (69%). Researchers and REC members were ranked as the top target audiences to be trained. Of 32 topics, the top five training priorities were: basic ethical principles, coverage of applicable laws and regulations, how to conduct ethics review, evaluating informed consent processes and the role of the REC.Conclusion: Although the majority of REC members in the targeted African countries had received training in ethics, they expressed a need for additional training. The results of this survey have been used to design a training program in research ethics evaluation that meets this need. (shrink)

The police are one of the most powerful and important forces for any country. The main task of the police is to install a sense of security in the ordinary citizens and to protect their life and property when they are in danger. Bangladeshi Police have a glorious past with tremendous achievement. Especially in our great liberation war in 1971, they played an important role in achieving our liberation. Eliminating terrorism & militancy and others several operation that (...) leads with the risk of their life. But there are still a lot of accusations against the police force. Like- abusing of power, Misconducting with the people, Committing crossfire defying the high-court order, Wearing white dress when they move to detain criminals, Arresting without warrant, and many other including Bribery, Extortion, Trading Drug and Yaba, Playing partisan role, keeping Bad association, Filing case against deceased man, Charging sheet against the infant who has not been born yet, Enforcing disappearance, Suppressing the freedom of express, Violating Human rights, Doing anti-social activities such as rape, forcible extortion, drinking alcohol, etc. are the real scenario of Bangladesh Police. Policing ethics or related unethical behaviors, in particular, are shaped by both societal perceptions and organizational socialization of the police personnel on how authority should be exercised, as well as the latter's relationship with the socio-political and economic structures overtime. This paper proposes to explain the role of police as the main law enforcement agency in any democratic country. An Attempt has been made to bring different perspectives of ethics which comprises views of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Immanuel Kant, J S Mill and John Rawls. The paper focuses on police Ethics. Police ethics’ reflects the society and the regulations that shape the policing system. Discuss the results and analysis of the consequences of moral degradation caused by the Police. Explore the police brutality because of the lack of Ethics to highlight the public's attitude towards police. The ethical standards and the code of conduct Police practitioners should actually abide by is an ongoing debate. (shrink)

What should be a police department's policies and regulations on the use of deadly force? What is the relevance for this of the state law on capital punishment?

Protecting the people we experiment on --"Inside the black box" : becoming and being IRB members -- Weighing risks and benefits and undue inducement -- Defining research and how good it needs to be -- What to tell subjects : battles over consent forms -- From "nitpicky" to "user-friendly" : inter-IRB variations and their causes -- Federal agencies vs. local IRBs -- The roles of industry -- The local ecologies of institutions -- Trusting vs. policing researchers -- Bad behavior: research (...) integrity -- Researchers abroad : studies in the developing world -- Changing national policies -- Conclusions : other changes. (shrink)

It is inevitable that physicians in training will be exposed to behavior by supervising physicians that the trainees find unethical. By nature these events are rare. It is imperative within any residency training program that resident physicians have immediate access to a meaningful review process in cases of moral conflict with supervising physicians. Here, I discuss the reasons why this issue must be recognized and what it entails. Most important, I discuss the procedural steps that are essential for (...) the training program to make this a meaningful safety mechanism in residency training. This issue is central to promoting conscious development of professionalism in clinical training. Physicians in training, especially resident physicians, need to be taught to value and protect their own professional integrity. The responsibility for fulfilling this ethical duty falls on the individual residency programs as well as the administrative organizations that regulate residency training. Thus, ensuring this process of review is an organizational ethical imperative. Availability of this process is fundamental to promoting and ensuring ethical behavior by all participants in residency training. (shrink)

Since the first edition was published in 1989, Character and Cops has been considered the bible of police ethics training. The book is a comprehensive guide to the ethical challenges faced daily by police officers, especially in times of heightened security. The updated sixth edition features a new foreword by David Bores, a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States military police, and a new chapter titled 'From War Veterans to Peace Officers,' which explores policies (...) for incorporating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan into the domestic police force. (shrink)

Background Regulations on research ethics in France have evolved considerably over the past four years: the implementation of the Jardé law and of the General Data Protection Regulations have changed the landscape of research ethics for research involving or not involving human persons. In a context of creation of an Institutional Review Board at the University of Bordeaux, France, we sought to explore research ethics practices and perceptions in the medical community of our University Hospital. Methods A short questionnaire was (...) sent to all physicians of the University Hospital of Bordeaux. The questionnaire included closed questions and main topics were: physicians’ education in research ethics, ethics practices concerning researches non implying human persons, and physicians’ perceptions about current regulations. Results 86 questionnaires were sent back. If a majority of physicians have validated Good Clinical Practices trainings, there was a low rate of specific training on fundamental references in research ethics and a high proportion of responders do not consider themselves as educated in research ethics after completion of GCPs. Regulations on research ethics have many implications on medical research, especially by inducing changes in protocols in order to alleviate ethical requirements. Malpractices were acknowledged like false mention of positive opinion from an ethics committee. If If a majority of responders considers regulations as a positive answer to research ethics, a large majority considers it as a constraint and a complexification of research process. For 58%, regulations in research ethics are perceived as a hindrance for research initiatives. Conclusion Because of their impact on research process, regulations seem to constitute a scarecrow for physicians. Lack of training, bad representations and questionable practices highlight the need to improve education and to propose concrete guidance for medical researchers. (shrink)

Background Q-CEP (Qualificação dos Comitês de Ética em Pesquisa que compõem o Sistema CEP/Conep) is a nationwide project resulting from a partnership between the Brazilian National Research Ethics Commission (Conep), the Ministry of Health and Hospital Moinhos de Vento (HMV). It was developed to consolidate policy for ethical review of research with human beings in all members of the CEP/Conep System, Brazil’s national system of institutional review boards. The aim of this study was therefore to report on the experience (...) and results of the Q-CEP project. Methods An observational, retrospective study includes data from the Q-CEP, obtained from visits to all the institutional research ethics committees (RECs) in the country. The actions implemented by Q-CEP were part of a two-step process: (i) training visits to each REC; (ii) development of distance learning modules on strategic topics pertaining to research ethics evaluation. The data presented herein cover step one (training visits), defined by Q-CEP as the diagnostic stage of the project. For a country with social and economics inequalities such as Brazil, this is a particularly important stage; an accurate picture of reality is needed to inform planning of quality improvement strategies. Results In 2019–2021, Q-CEP visited 832 RECs and trained 11,197 people. This sample covered almost all active RECs in the country; only 4 (0.5%) were not evaluated. Of the 94 items evaluated, 62% did not reach the target of at least 80% compliance and around 1/4 (26%) were below 50% compliance. The diagnostic stage of the process revealed inadequacies on the part of the RECs in their ethical reviews. The analysis of informed consent forms showed compliance in only 131 RECs (15.74%). The description of pending issues made by RECs in their reports was compliant in 19.33% (n = 161). Administrative and operational aspects were also considered inadequate by more than half of the RECs. Conclusions Overall, Brazilian RECs showed poor compliance in several aspects of their operation, both in ethics evaluation and in other processes, which justifies additional training. The Q-CEP project is part of a quality improvement policy promoted by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The data obtained in the diagnostic step of the project have contributed to the qualification and consolidation of one of the world’s largest research ethics evaluation systems. (shrink)

Philosophical counseling is a diverse and burgeoning type of mental health service delivery. Despite competing approaches to theory and practice, the field has largely strayed from an ethical critique of its methodology and counselor training requirements. This article outlines several ethical considerations and training recommendations that are proposed to bolster the quality and effectiveness of philosophical practice. As philosophical counseling gains increasing recognition in North America, recently established national organizations in philosophical practice may profit from revisiting (...) their interim codes for professional conduct Proposed training suggestions for counselor preparation may further assist institutions and board-regulated agencies in establishing competent and acceptable standards of client care. (shrink)

Because complex environmental problems are relegated to scientific experts, the ethical questions that are embedded in these problems are often hidden or distorted in scientific and administrative methodology and communication. The administrative process requires that facts and values be separated. Those values that cannot simply be ignored are usually translated into technical economic language and settled in terms of economic costs and benefits. Calls for regulatory reform-i.e., to reduce or eliminate environmental regulation--create additional pressures on analysts that encourage them (...) to focus on quantitative questions at the expense of qualitative ones. Distortion can also result from the use of standard risk assessment procedures and from the improper placement of burden of proof on govemment agencies. The greatest problem, nevertheless, is the narrow scientific training of technical experts which frequently leaves them unprepared to deal with the ethical and value issues in environmental public policy. (shrink)

The curriculum design, faculty characteristics, and experience of implementing masters' level international research ethics training programs supported by the Fogarty International Center was investigated. Multiple pedagogical approaches were employed to adapt to the learning needs of the trainees. While no generally agreed set of core competencies exists for advanced research ethics training, more than 75% of the curricula examined included international issues in research ethics, responsible conduct of research, human rights, philosophical foundations of research ethics, and research regulation (...) and ethical review process. Common skills taught included critical thinking, research methodology and statistics, writing, and presentation proficiency. Curricula also addressed the cultural, social, and religious context of the trainees related to research ethics. Programs surveyed noted trainee interest in Western concepts of research ethics and the value of the transnational exchange of ideas. Similar faculty expertise profiles existed in all programs. Approximately 40% of faculty were female. Collaboration between faculty from low- and middleincome countries (LMICs) and high-income countries (HICs) occurred in most programs and at least 50% of HIC faculty had previous LMIC experience. This paper is part of a collection of papers analyzing the Fogarty International Research Ethics Education and Curriculum Development program. (shrink)

Research ethics principles and regulations typically have been applied to the protection of individual human subjects. Yet, new paradigms of research that include the place-based community and cultural groups as partners or participants of environmental research interventions, in particular, require attention to place-based identities and geographical contexts. This paper argues the importance of respecting “place” within human subjects protections applied to communities and cultural groups as part of a critical need for research ethics and cultural competence training for graduate (...) research students. These protections and benefits are extensions of the Belmont Principles and have been included in recent recommendations from research regulatory committees. (shrink)

Different ethical principles conflict in research conducted in emergency research. Clinical care and its development should be based on research. Patients in critical clinical condition are in the greatest need of better medicines. The critical condition of the patient and the absence of a patient representative at the critical time period make it difficult and sometimes impossible to request an informed consent before the beginning of the trial. In an emergency, care decisions must be made in a short period (...) of time, and the more time is wasted, the more the risk of death or severe tissue damage and incapacity increases. Consent requests take time, and so the time period before treatment might put the patient’s life in jeopardy. Not requesting consent before a trial is also contradictory. A person should not be forced to participate in a trial against his or her will. Due to the dark history of medical research previously, international declarations and conventions have set up ethical principles for medical research. They emphasize the autonomy of the research participant—or his or her legal representative—to give a free and informed consent prior to the initiation of research. In the case of a critical emergency, the unconscious state of the patient, the emotional stress of family members or the lack of time to start life-sustaining measures may often restrict the possibilities of communicating with the patient or his/her representative. Therefore, written informed consent is difficult to achieve, and its voluntariness in emergency situations is, at best, open to question. The mortality of patients is high without clinical interventions in emergency research. Random selection of patients is difficult and requires extra work from personnel in the emergency rooms. Recruitment, information and asking for consent may also take time, postpone the initiation of treatment and increase the risk of death and irreversible tissue and organ damage, and therefore be risky for the patient. It is therefore essential that the health care professionals recruiting suitable research participants are well motivated and well trained. Medical research in an emergency setting should always be regarded as an exceptional situation requiring special provisions. Only such research should be done as cannot be done in other conditions. An independent body must approve the research protocol and the ways in which the consent of the participant or proxy are to be sought. In addition, the trial must be expected to result in direct and significant benefit for the research participants. If research without prior consent is not approved, the development of emergency care is threatened. On the other hand, if prior consent is not required, a person could be recruited into a clinical trial against his or her will. Doing good and avoiding harm, and respecting the autonomy of the patient are in conflict in the context of emergency medical research. To develop better medicines for patients experiencing acute medical emergencies, research into such conditions should be allowed. Research participants should have the possibility to participate or refuse to participate in research that may benefit them and other patients. The risk of irreversible damage occurring as the consequence of time delays for seeking consent is unacceptable. A prior wish about participation in clinical trials should be respected, if known. The conditions under which medical research in emergencies can be considered acceptable can be determined and agreed upon nationally and internationally. (shrink)

The ethics of policing currently neglects to provide a framework for analysing the morality of deliberate inactions to prevent harm, even though these are often adopted tactically by police as a means of preventing greater harms. In this paper we argue (a) that police have special moral obligations to prevent harm, grounded both in a contractarian account of police legitimacy and in the interpersonal morality of associations and (b) that police are morally culpable for failures to (...) fulfil these special obligations when these are neither proportionate nor necessary to the prevention of greater crime-related harms. Our claims have implications both for the morality of policing and for its regulation and governance under human rights legislation, which we argue should be reformed so as to recognise police culpability not only for inflictions of harm, but also for failures to prevent it. (shrink)

While issues of efficacy and specificity are crucial for the future of neurofeedback training, there may be alternative designs and control analyses to circumvent the methodological and ethical problems associated with double-blind placebo studies. Surprisingly, most NF studies do not report the most immediate result of their NF training, i.e. whether or not children with ADHD gain control over their brain activity during the training sessions. For the investigation of specificity, however, it seems essential to analyze (...) the learning and adaptation processes that take place in the course of the training and to relate improvements in self-regulated brain activity across training sessions to behavioral, neuropsychological and electrophysiological outcomes. To this aim, a review of studies on neurofeedback training with ADHD patients, which include the analysis of learning across training sessions or relate training performance to outcome, is presented. Methods on how to evaluate and quantify learning of EEG regulation over time are discussed. “Non-learning” has been reported in a small number of ADHD-studies, but has not been a focus of general methodological discussion so far. For this reason, selected results from the brain-computer interface (BCI) research on the so-called “brain-computer illiteracy”, the inability to gain control over one’s brain activity, are also included. It is concluded that in the discussion on specificity, more attention should be devoted to the analysis of EEG regulation performance in the course of the training and its impact on clinical outcome. It is necessary to improve the knowledge on characteristic cross-session and within-session learning trajectories in ADHD and to provide the best conditions for learning. (shrink)

Conducting or overseeing research in correctional settings requires knowledge of specific federal rules and regulations designed to protect the rights of individuals in incarceration. To investigate the extent to which relevant groups possess this knowledge, using a 10-item questionnaire, we surveyed 885 IRB prisoner representatives, IRB members and chairs with and without experience reviewing HIV/AIDS correctional protocols, and researchers with and without correctional HIV/AIDS research experience. Across all groups, respondents answered 4.5 of the items correctly. Individuals who have overseen or (...) conducted correctional research had the highest scores; however, even these groups responded correctly only to slightly more than half of the items. These findings emphasize the need for ongoing training in federal guidelines governing correctional research, particularly for those individuals who are embarking on this type of research. (shrink)

Existing regulation of end-of-life care is flawed. Problems include poorly-designed laws, policies, ethical codes, training, and funding programs, which often are neither effective nor helpful in guiding decision-making. This leads to adverse outcomes for patients, families, health professionals, and the health system as a whole. A key factor contributing to the harms of current regulation is a siloed approach to regulating end-of-life care. Existing approaches to regulation, and research into how that regulation could be improved, have tended to (...) focus on a single regulatory instrument (e.g., just law or just ethical codes). As a result, there has been a failure to capture holistically the various forces that guide end-of-life care. This article proposes a response to address this, identifying “regulatory space” theory as a candidate to provide the much-needed holistic insight into improving regulation of end-of-life care. The article concludes with practical implications of this approach for regulators and researchers. (shrink)

“Medical Tourism” is the travel of residents of one country to another country for treatment. In this article I focus on travel abroad to purchase organs for transplant, what I will call “Transplant Tourism.” With the exception of Iran, organ sale is illegal across the globe, but many destination countries have thriving black markets, either due to their willful failure to police the practice or more good faith lack of resources to detect it. I focus on the sale of (...) kidneys, the most common subject of transplant tourism, though much of what I say could be applied to other organs as well. Part I briefly reviews some data on sellers, recipients, and brokers. Part II discusses the bioethical issues posed by the trade, and Part III focuses on potential regulation to deal with these issues. (shrink)

This article is analysing the legal perspective on whistleblowing, at European and national level, focusing on the scientific studies’ results and theories, emphasizing nuances which worth discussing in order to a better understanding of the social phenomenon and of individual psychological decision process for reporting a wrongdoing or the suspicion of a possible breach. We are also arguing that current whistleblower regulations must take into account both the European directive and recent research in this field, pointing out some question which (...) are raising from the lack of the ethical and cultural focused research of Romanian society perspective on whistleblowing, considering also the recent past experiences of Romanians with political police actions in years of communism. We are establishing a few research directions which we conclude that could bring the knowledge to drawing a more relevant and applicable whistleblowing law. (shrink)

Although modern technical and scientific developments in medicine are followed closely in Turkey, it cannot be claimed that the same is true in the field of bioethics. Yet, more and more attention is now being paid to bioethics and ethics training in health sciences. In addition, there are also legal regulations in bioethics, some of which are not so new. The objective of these regulations is to provide technical and administrative control. Ethical concerns are rather few. What attracts (...) our attention most in these regulations is the presence of the idea of "consent". (shrink)

Social injustice and calls to activism take many forms, whether in environmental, medical, legal, political, or educational realms. In this article, I consider the role of activism in ethics institute initiatives. First, as a case study, I discuss an activist initiative for police reform led, in part, by the Kegley Institute of Ethics at California State University, Bakersfield. Specifically, I outline the formation of the Bakersfield Police Department—Community Collaborative, created to review regional and national police policy and (...) training recommendations and to solicit and formalize community-sourced recommendations for policing reform and building trust and greater partnership between the BPD and community. Second, I discuss outcomes and implications of this project and consider its significance for understanding activist roles available to the community engaged ethics institute more generally. In this discussion, I explore practical dimensions and ethical implications of activist approaches in the work of an ethics institute. (shrink)

ONE Setting the Scene Ethics is central to modern life. Lawyers, accountants, doctors, nurses, the police, members of the armed forces, social workers and many others are required to study ethical issues as part of their training.

As part of the Dutch national science program “Professional Games for Professional Skills” we developed a stress-exposure biofeedback training in virtual reality for the Dutch police. We aim to reduce the acute negative impact of stress on performance, as well as long-term consequences for mental health by facilitating physiological stress regulation during a demanding decision task. Conventional biofeedback applications mainly train physiological regulation at rest. This might limit the transfer of the regulation skills to stressful situations. In contrast, (...) we provide the user with the opportunity to practice breathing regulation while they carry out a complex task in VR. This setting poses challenges from a technical – as well as from a user-experience perspective. We illustrate how we approach these challenges in our training and hope to contribute a useful reference for researchers and developers in academia or industry who are interested in using biosignals to control elements in a dynamic virtual environment. (shrink)

Central Asian researchers are underrepresented in the global research production in social sciences, resulting in a limited Central Asian perspective on many social issues. To stimulate the production of local knowledge, it is important to develop strong research cultures, including knowledge of ethical practices in research with human participants. There is currently scarce evidence about research ethics regulations used by social science researchers working in the Central Asian region. This article reports findings from an online survey conducted in Kazakhstan, (...) Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan ( n = 296) from October 2021 to January 2022. Focusing on three Central Asian countries, this article addresses the following research questions: What are the attitudes and practices of social science researchers based in Central Asia toward research ethics regulations and research ethics committees (RECs)? Is research ethics training associated with improved attitudes and practices in relation to research ethics among social scientists based in Central Asia? Is research experience associated with improved attitudes and practices in relation to research ethics among social scientists based in Central Asia? Regression analyses results demonstrate that locally based social scientists with prior research ethics training implement ethical procedures in their empirical research practice more often compared to researchers without any prior research ethics training. The preliminary findings indicate that research ethics training is positively associated with Central Asia-based social science researchers’ engagement in ethical research, thus potentially increasing the amount and quality of empirical social science research produced in the region. (shrink)

While ethical norms for conducting academic research in the United Kingdom are relatively clear, there is little empirical understanding of how university research ethics committees (RECs) themselves operate and whether they are seen to operate well. In this article, we offer insights from a project focused on the Scottish university context. We deployed a three-sided qualitative approach: (i) document analysis; (ii) interviews with REC members, administrators, and managers; and (iii) direct observation of REC meetings. We found that RECs have (...) diverse operation and vary in terms of what members understand to be the remit of their REC and what should constitute the content of ethics review. Overall, though, most participants perceive university RECs as operating well. When asked what they consider to be areas for further improvement, most commented on: implementation of an online system; more experience with how to evaluate various kinds of research projects; best practice exchange and training opportunities; more accurate reflection of the REC role as part of the university’s workload allocation model; and greater recognition of the importance of research ethics governance in the university’s research environment, and, for the members themselves, their career advancement. Based on our findings and subsequent discussions during an end-of-project roundtable with stakeholders, we propose a model of collaboration that can address some of the identified areas that could benefit from further improvement. This model would facilitate a heightened awareness of the importance of supporting REC members in their own effort in assisting students and staff alike in undertaking as ethically robust research as possible. (shrink)

The establishment of research ethics committees (REC) in China’s higher education institutions (HEI) is lagging far behind western developed countries. This has at least partly directly led to anomie in scientific research ethics, as seen in the recent controversies involving a proposed human head transplant and gene-edited babies. At present, the problems for REC in China’s HEI include lack of regulation, informal ethics reviews, lack of supervision and insufficient ethics review capacity. To counteract these problems, suggested measures include mandatory formation (...) of formal ethics committee, administrative support from HEI, ethics approval letter prior to funding application, formulation of regulations and standard operating procedures, selecting and training for members and independent consultants, training for secretaries and staff, ethics training for investigators, and learning from the experience of HEI outside of China, such as the USA and Canada. The establishment of REC in China’s HEI will greatly enhance the overall quality of ethics reviews in China. In addition to better protecting the rights and welfare of human participants, it is also conducive to maintaining the reputation of China’s HEI. (shrink)

In spite of the wide variety of approaches to ethics training it is still debatable which approach has the highest potential to enhance professionals’ integrity. The current effort assesses a novel curriculum that focuses on metacognitive reasoning strategies researchers use when making sense of day-to-day professional practices that have ethical implications. The evaluated trainings effectiveness was assessed by examining five key sensemaking processes, such as framing, emotion regulation, forecasting, self-reflection, and information integration that experts and novices apply in (...) ethical decision-making. Mental models of trained and untrained graduate students, as well as faculty, working in the field of physical sciences were compared using a think-aloud protocol 6 months following the ethics training. Evaluation and comparison of the mental models of participants provided further validation evidence for sensemaking training. Specifically, it was found that trained students applied metacognitive reasoning strategies learned during training in their ethical decision-making that resulted in complex mental models focused on the objective assessment of the situation. Mental models of faculty and untrained students were externally-driven with a heavy focus on autobiographical processes. The study shows that sensemaking training has a potential to induce shifts in researchers’ mental models by making them more cognitively complex via the use of metacognitive reasoning strategies. Furthermore, field experts may benefit from sensemaking training to improve their ethical decision-making framework in highly complex, novel, and ambiguous situations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Recent police brutality has reminded people in the United States of America that racism and discrimination toward Black Americans is still prevalent. Evidence supports the claim that many Black Americans experience racial trauma due to the relatively common occurrence of discriminatory racial encounters in their life. Racial traumas are events of danger related to real or secondary experiences of racial discrimination that may cause psychological, emotional, or physical injury. The goal of this article is to identify the (...) class='Hi'>ethical complexities for psychologists in addressing racial trauma among Black Americans. First, the article describes examples of racial traumas for Black Americans and their impact on overall mental health. Second, there is an in-depth analysis of ethical issues for psychologists relevant to racial trauma in areas such as competency, discrimination and harassment, bias, assessment, training programs, and harm. Finally, recommendations for psychologists are provided to address racial trauma among Black American clients, students, supervisees, and colleagues. (shrink)

Medical doctors are commissioned by the migration authorities and/or border police to assist in decision making about asylum seeker’s requests for residency permits in Sweden. They are asked to: (i) assess the formal written medical opinions made by physicians in support of asylum or humanitarian narratives in the asylum process and/or (ii) to make medical assessments of persons considered for deportation. This arrangement raises questions such as: How is the decision making process carried out? How is medical knowledge used, (...) and who ought to make decisions about medical evidence in the asylum process? Does this approach effect public health overall? There are longstanding concerns that medical assessments to certify whether a person is fit for transport or not, can have a direct, negative impact on persons in need of care and protection. A separate structure of doctors commissioned by the immigration authority seems to raise professional tensions, politicizes medical constructs and contributes to moral disengagement. Empirical data are used to illustrate this discussion with reference to medical issues, medical ethics, public health and legal discourses. I then reflect on key value conflicts using public health ethics theory and conclude with implications for public health ethic theory, policy and practice. (shrink)

This article offers a detailed examination of the content of predictive policing applications. Crime prediction machines are used by governments to shape the moral behavior of police. They serve not only to predict when and where crime is likely to occur, but also to regulate police work. They calculate equivalence ratios, distributing security across the territory based on multiple cost and social justice criteria. Tracing the origins of predictive policing in the Compstat system, this article studies the shift (...) from machines to explore intuitions to applications removing the reflexive dimension of proactivity, thus turning prediction into the medium for “dosage” metrics of police work quantities. Finally, the article discusses how, driven by a critical movement denouncing the discriminatory biases of predictive machines, developers seek to develop techniques to audit training dataset and ways to calculate the reasonable amount of stop and frisk over the population. (shrink)

The regulation of narcotic medications used in narcotic addiction treatment is unique in medical therapeutics. Physicians who want to use narcotics for this indication must obtain a separate annual registration from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Annual registration is contingent on compliance with both the DEA's security regulations as well as treatment regulations jointly promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.During the last decade, a number of events have occurred that persuaded NIDA that it (...) is time to reevaluate the current method by which the Department of Health and Human Services regulates methadone treatment. As a result of research during the past twenty years, we have learned about the effective components of methadone treatment. In comparison to other available treatment modalities for opioid addiction, methadone treatment is uniquely effective when administered by well-trained medical staffs. (shrink)

Hannah James makes a persuasive case for the use of donated bodies and body parts in surgical training, enabling high fidelity training, improved competency of surgeons and reduced risk of harm to patients from trainees ‘learning on the job’.1 She also identifies some pertinent ethical questions that arise from this practice that should be considered by training organisations, regulatory authorities and the trainees themselves. Many countries throughout the world have regulated programmes, governed by strict ethical (...) principles, for donating bodies, usually to academic institutions for the purposes of medical education.2 In the UK the Human Tissue Authority sets out guiding principles for institutions licensed to handle human tissue including donation of bodies for anatomical examination, education and research; consent, dignity, quality, and honesty and openness.3 The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, in its 2011 report, Human Bodies: donation for medicine and research, identified a number of relevant ethical values including autonomy, altruism, justice, dignity, reciprocity, maximising welfare, and honesty and respect.4 While this report did not focus specifically on donation of human tissue for education and training the principles identified are equally relevant in this context. In terms of maximising welfare whole body donation for education and training provides benefit to many patients over a relatively short time frame …. (shrink)

To achieve ethical corporate governance, directors' first priority must be to examine their own structure and operation. If theboard is vulnerable to charges of unethical conduct, it will have little credibility in its oversight role over the corporate culture of theorganization. An examination of a positive model of corporate governance in the mutual fund industry provides an effectiveillustration of several ways to add ethics to corporate governance: 1) legislation; 2) jawboning; 3) peer pressure; 4) regulation; 5) training and (...) reflection. While peer pressure and training are more effective than the others, all those methods taken together cannot solve every ethical lapse. Only individual board members, working together, can influence the conduct of the board and propel themselves and the organization towards a standard of continuing ethical excellence. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals encounter many moral challenges in their daily clinical practice. However, there have been few studies on the subject matter in Tanzania. This study aims to provide an account of moral challenges faced by healthcare professionals in Tanzanian hospitals, their understanding of clinical ethics, and the ethics education they have received. Many participants reported receiving some kind of ethics training through formal education and on-the-job training. Some participants understood ethics in healthcare settings as adherence to established laws, (...) regulations, guidelines, procedures, norms, and rules essential in clinical practice. Analysis of the data identified four themes of moral challenges. These challenges are related to 1) decision-making and communication in clinical practice, 2) scarcity of medical resources and prioritization in clinical practice, 3) withdrawal of curative treatment, and 4) conflicts between professional judgment, religious convictions and adherence to alternative treatments. Based on the findings, we suggest a context-sensitive form of clinical ethics training to prepare healthcare professionals to recognize and address these moral challenges. (shrink)

The article considers the ethics of education as a relatively new type of applied ethics. It is focused on identifying specific contradictory situations that arise in the educational process, analyzing and considering them as dilemmas of moral choice. It is shown that, like any applied ethics, the ethics of education is relevant because it is a product of ambiguity and novelty from the point of view of the morality of its modern problems. The author analyzes the institute of education, institutional (...) practice, reveals special problems of the phenomenon of education in the modern socio-cultural space. The specific dilemmas generated by the conflict of values, which require appropriate methods of moral regulation, are named. It is substantiated that ethical analysis not only reveals the moral dilemmas of the educational process, but even builds an algorithm for getting out of these difficult situations. The moral aspect of the value paradigm of educational activity, which is being formed today, the level of value orientation of the educational process is highlighted and analyzed. It is noted that the problems of implementing the modern paradigm of education in Ukraine, in addition to civilizational factors, are determined by the national features of reforming the educational system in the context of the immaturity of democracy and the market economy. In conclusion, it is emphasized the need to develop applied ethics of education in our country as a system of theoretical research and practical procedures for determining clear value bases for the formation of a new educational paradigm adequate to modern moral challenges. It is emphasized that specialists with ethical training should work in the field of education ethics. (shrink)

Everything that journalists do has ethical implications, and The Ethical Journalist discusses a range of ethical questions likely to confront those studying journalism and/or training to become journalists. The starting point for this engaging and innovative book is that ethical journalism is good journalism. Building on the reflective and questioning approach of the author’s acclaimed Journalism: Principles and Practice (2004), The Ethical Journalist links theory and practice throughout by examining the views of journalists and (...) academics. It places anecdotal experience within the context of relevant critical study, and scrutinizes academic explanations within the context of practitioner accounts. Informed by original research and the author’s own experience within mainstream and alternative journalism, The Ethical Journalist addresses topics issues such as trust, the public interest, undercover reporting, news values, source relationships, crime reporting, regulation, and the Hutton inquiry. This exciting new title discusses ethics as fundamental rather than as a set of problems or an added extra, and it should become essential reading for everyone interested in journalism. (shrink)

BackgroundPublic Safety Personnel are routinely exposed to human suffering and need to make quick, morally challenging decisions. Such decisions can affect their psychological wellbeing. Participating in or observing an event or situation that conflicts with personal values can potentially lead to the development of moral injury. Common stressors associated with moral injury include betrayal, inability to prevent death or harm, and ethical dilemmas. Potentially psychologically traumatic event exposures and post-traumatic stress disorder can be comorbid with moral injury; however, moral (...) injury extends beyond fear to include spiritual, cognitive, emotional or existential struggles, which can produce feelings of severe shame, guilt, and anger.ObjectiveThis scoping review was designed to identify the extant empirical research regarding the construct of moral injury, its associated constructs, and how it relates to moral distress in firefighters, paramedics, and police officers.MethodsA systematic literature search of peer-reviewed research was conducted using databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, APA PsychInfo, CINHAL PLUS, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar. Included studies were selected based on the inclusion criteria before being manually extracted and independently screened by two reviewers.ResultsThe initial database search returned 777 articles, 506 of which remained after removal of duplicates. Following review of titles, abstracts, and full texts, 32 studies were included in the current review. Participants in the articles were primarily police officers, with fewer articles focusing on paramedics and firefighters. There were two studies that included mixed populations. Most studies were qualitative and focused on four topics: values, ethical decision-making, organizational betrayal, and spirituality.ConclusionPublic safety organizations appear to recognize the experience of moral distress or moral injury among public safety personnel that results from disconnects between personal core values, formal and informal organizational values, vocational duties, and expectations. Further research is needed to better understand moral distress or moral injury specific to public safety personnel and inform training and treatment in support of public safety personnel mental health. (shrink)

The organization of the modern police is a contingent social choice about how to engage in the process of governance when regulating public order on the street. The police are the agency authorized to act upon the state’s duty to govern in response to public emergencies. The duty to govern exists when there is some urgent social need that could be resolved by acting, and some person or institution has the resources and ability to do that act. The (...) duty is impersonal: anybody with the relevant skill set is obligated to act to address the relevant need. Problems can arise, however, when too few individuals respond or too many compete to resolve the need. A core feature of governance, then, is to create publicly recognized institutions with special authority, resources, and abilities to address the demand for public services when someone needs to step in and do something to the exclusion of ordinary members of the public. Police agencies are further characterized by various powers and duties. These powers are normative powers to change the legal status of the people with whom the police interact, rather than physical powers to use some amount of violence to coerce individuals to comply with police demands. The core powers of the police include the powers to make authoritative determinations about how to respond to an emergency, to detain individuals, and to trespass upon their person or property, along with conjoined duties to govern, to protect, and to intervene at risk to themselves. The dominant approach attempts to distinguish the police from other institutions using the police ability to use violent to respond to public emergencies. On the governance based model of the police, however, the ability to use force is simply one of the resources available to the police, and does not mark them off as different from other public governance agencies. (shrink)

This book stems from more than 30 years of experience in the development of practical law enforcement ethics training. It is written based on the real-world application of a wide variety of approaches to enhancing ethics awareness and decision-making skills. There has been an explosion of efforts to increase the emphasis on ethics in law enforcement. The most effective of these efforts involve our law enforcement officers themselves in (1) sharing ideas, experiences, and wisdom with each other and (2) (...) analyzing long-term consequences in a risk-free learning environment, before the need arises for making actual decisions or engaging in conduct. Accomplishing those objectives can be attempted with a variety of formats, presentations, and approaches. Instead of being shown how to “teach” ethics, readers will be given material and ideas on how to enhance existing ethics awareness and ethics skills with their personnel. Readers are provided with pointers on talking with staff, not “at” them, in order to foster awareness about how ethical values and standards to which they already subscribe apply in real-world law enforcement decision-making and conduct. A unique aspect of this text is that it is written primarily for line sergeants and lieutenants to use with their own in-service personnel. It contains material that is designed to be easy-to-present and non-intimidating. It is adaptable to briefings of limited duration as well as longer training sessions. There is substantial content to enable an agency to maintain an on-going program of recurrent, short-but-meaningful discussions with and among personnel. Most importantly, it is practical and down-to-earth–not theoretical or abstract. Also, the book is based on the belief that with a combination of interest and practice, any sergeant or lieutenant, or any officer or deputy, can overcome any self-perceived weakness and become an accomplished “ethics awareness discussion leader.” In addition to its primary audience, the book will also be a helpful resource for field-training officers, senior officers, non-sworn personnel, and law enforcement executives. (shrink)

For Aristotle, virtues are neither transcendent nor universal, but socially interdependent; they need to be understood chronologically and with respect to character and context. This paper uses an Aristotelian lens to analyse an especially interesting context in which to study virtue—the state’s response when social order breaks down. During such periods, questions relating to right action by citizens, the state, and state agents are pronounced. To study this, we analyse data from interviews, observation, and documents gathered during a 3-year study (...) of riot policing in the U.K. In doing so, we contribute by joining a number of other conversations within JBE, suggesting detailed empirical examination of this context is useful in opening up considerations relevant to ‘virtue’ elsewhere. This extreme context helps us raise interesting and empirically informed questions that can encourage future theoretical and empirical contributions to virtue in business ethics. One such question is on the role of habituation in virtue, which is not just the inculcation of a reflex or automaticity, but can also refer to a trained and developed tendency to behave in the right way, for the right reasons, at the right time. Whilst we stop short of a simplistic alignment of habituation and virtue, we show ways in which it can inform understanding of both courage and phronēsis. (shrink)

Nowadays ethics plays a vital role in numerous professions. Due to social requirements and technical advances, changes in the accreditation rules in legal, economic, medical and engineering education have emerged in many countries, often requiring the inclusion of an ethics requirement in such professional programmes. In this work, the authors demonstrate that such changes are absolutely necessary in the legal profession in Lithuania. Specifically, the record low level of prestige of the judiciary and lawyers in the Lithuanian society and the (...) fact that lawyers are often accused of legal nihilism, clannish behaviour, and protectionism, demand that legal ethics assumes a far greater role in Lithuanian legal education. It is necessary to stress that the topic of lawyers’ ethical violations and the consequences of such violations is discussed in the society in only in a fragmentary, and not transparent manner; moreover, the significance of ethics in the education and training of lawyers has not been properly evaluated either. Especially having in mind Lithuania’s Soviet heritage (during most of the Communist era there was almost no education on those issues), it becomes obvious that legal ethics must be continuously stressed in the legal profession’s education and development. The importance and relevance of this topic is primarily determined by the current evaluation of lawyers in Lithuania, which shows that lawyers do not fulfil the expectations of the society. This raises a question whether law graduates indeed acquire this system of ethical values as part of the process of obtaining the knowledge and skills that are necessary for a modern lawyer. While analysing the Lithuanian legal documents governing the requirements for legal studies, it has been noticed that a course in legal ethics or lawyer’s professional responsibility is not compulsory either in the qualification requirements for judges, or in the Ruling of the Constitutional Court of 20 February 2008 on legal education for those who want to assume the position of a judge according to the order of law. In the description of legal study programmes, courses on professional ethics are designated as an optional non-legal subject, which is quite different from the legal education systems of other countries, where this type of course is compulsory for future lawyers. Even if this course is taught at Lithuanian higher education establishments, it is limited to the analysis of cases and legal regulation. Insufficient attention to this issue obviously creates the erroneous impression that it is of secondary importance for a lawyer. It should be noted that legal ethical standards, the development of lawyers’ value systems and other problematic questions related to legal ethics have not attracted attention of the Lithuanian scholars either. Therefore, this is a question of the utmost importance for legal education and requires additional research. In global educational and other academic literature, much is being discussed about the methods of teaching ethics, and the place of ethical subjects in study programmes and assessment. It is well worth supporting the research on the development of lawyers’ value systems, in that the lack of such values may influence the evaluation of the practicing lawyers’ satisfaction with their job, self-confidence and belief in the importance of their profession. Obtaining social-ethical attitudes and perspectives helps future lawyers gain more trust in their professional identity and the correctness of their professional work. The main conclusions drawn from the research are the following: (1) the university can and needs to contribute to the development of students’ value systems and this is one of the most important content requirements within the legal study programmes; (2) while teaching ethics, the primary focus must be not on the legal acts regulating ethics, which are changing over time, but on the aim of helping that students themselves have an increased sense of selfawareness and sensitivity to ethical issues in law practice, recognise and understand ethical dilemmas arising in the law, recognise the dominant attitudes in the society towards the role of a lawyer and motivate them to reconsider and discuss the value bases of such attitudes and their change; (3) a course on legal ethics – no matter how perfect it would be – is not the only way to develop a personal value system. In this context, the importance of liberal arts education should be accentuated. Given the research conducted, there is a clear link between the development of moral awareness and the person’s education in general. (shrink)

Breaches of research integrity have gained considerable attention due to high-profile scandals involving questionable research practices by reputable scientists. These practices include plagiarism, manipulation of authorship, biased presentation of findings and misleading reports of significance. To combat such practices, policymakers tend to rely on top-down measures, mandatory ethics training and stricter regulation, despite limited evidence of their effectiveness. In this study, we investigate the occurrence and underlying factors of questionable research practices (QRPs) through an original survey of 3,005 social (...) and medical researchers at Swedish universities. By comparing the role of the organizational culture, researchers´ norms and counter norms, and individual motivation, the study reveals that the counter norm of Biasedness—the opposite of universalism and skepticism—is the overall most important factor. Thus, Biasedness was related to 40–60% of the prevalence of the questionable practices. The analysis also reveals the contradictory impact of other elements in the organizational environment. Internal competition was positively associated with QRP prevalence, while group-level ethics discussions consistently displayed a negative association with such practices. Furthermore, in the present study items covering ethics training and policies have only a marginal impact on the prevalence of these practices. The organizational climate and normative environment have a far greater influence. Based on these findings, it is suggested that academic leaders should prioritize the creation and maintenance of an open and unbiased research environment, foster a collaborative and collegial climate, and promote bottom-up ethics discussions within and between research groups. (shrink)