Ethical Issues: Ethical Treatment of Prisoners

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Ethical Theories of Utilitarianism and Deontology4

Virtue Ethics and Ethical Treatment in Prisons5

Importance of Ethics in Correctional Facility6

Treatment of Prisoners and Virtue Ethics7

Ethics and Healthcare for Prisoners8

Conclusion10

References12

Ethical Issues: Ethical Treatment of Prisoners

Introduction

This research paper focuses on ethical treatment of prisoners in the United States. The treatment of prisoners is based on the recognition of the inherent dignity of all members of the human family and their equal and inalienable rights. Prisoners all over the world are deprived of their rights. Prisoners and detainees are perceived as a societal threat, and their imprisonment is justified by means of their isolation with the society. This way society may be guarded form their criminal actions. However, there are certain rights for criminal. Criminal are human, and their rights need to be protected. If we review the history, there are a number of issues with the rights of prisoners. Prisoners and detainees were brutally treated in the past, because of their association with criminal and unlawful conducts. There were certain cases in which prisoners lose their lives during their interrogation. However, as the society develops and human rights play their role in the conducts of societies and its members, a number of criminal laws and rights emerged. Modern, criminal, legislative reforms not only protect the rights of the prisoners, but also provide ways for their rehabilitation (Møller, 2007).

The US criminal justice system is composed up of courts and, corrections are found in almost all countries, but their names may be different. These elements are based on a number of factors. Firstly, the US constitution and its amendments play a pivotal role in the constituency and formation of the entire legal system governing the United States of America. The dilemmas of treatment professionals within prisons must be relegated to the study of applied ethics in those fields, such as psychology and counseling.

Ethical Theories of Utilitarianism and Deontology

The rehabilitation model of the ethical theories of utilitarianism and deontology focuses on treatment, with the goal of remedying the internal causes that impel individuals to become criminal offenders. This model resembles the deterrence model in looking forward to a lowered incidence of crime, in contrast to the retributive emphasis on retaliating against the past commission of a crime. However, unlike the deterrence model's reliance on punishment itself to affect the future, treatment stresses a variety of positive methods for inducing change, including psychological counseling, education, and vocational training. This model has suffered at the practical level in those instances where it has degenerated into a reliance on drugs, surgery, and various types of therapeutic and other medical experimentation, and critics have also contested empirically the ability of rehabilitative efforts to prevent recidivism. There is a more powerful theoretical objection still: in using the offender's treatment needs as a criterion for release, predictive restraint may lengthen confinement, result in unequal treatments for the same crime, and permit the abuse of official discretion (Rodley, 1987).

The treatment should not focus on the exclusion ...