Week 3: Ethical Dilemma in Public Administration (Preston Tate Case)

Week 3: Ethical Dilemma in Public Administration (Preston Tate Case)

Introduction

In broad view, ethics deals with responsibilities and rights of public administrators as servants to the general population. This paper addresses how public administrator in case of Preston Tate deals with ethical choices; and the basis of analysis is on Copper's ethical decision-making model.

Discussion

In the case of Preston Tate, he was shot death by correction officers in California's Corcoran State Prison. The key ethical dilemma aroused in this case is due to whistle blowing. The whistle blowing act can result in conflict between the societal, organizational and personal sphere (Darling, 2012). For instance, in Tate case, two whistle blowers shared the information of misconduct for others benefits or to report the case of disloyalty with the public administration (prison).

According to Cooper, the possible courses of action that the guards could have taken include describing ethical dilemma, problem definition, deciding on possible causes and outcomes and then balancing the elements (Cooper, 2012). Guards must gather information regarding the ethical, guards then identify all possibilities or course of action. It is imperative that all ideas (such as whether to report misconduct of correction officer or not) even ones that initially seem implausible are argued. At times, the solution to an ethical issue has not been before tried. For example, whether the act of whistle blowing will adversely impact the morale of other correctional officers or provide safety to prisoners (Barusch, 2009).

They had chosen to be whistle blowers mainly because the correction officer acts in an immoral manner. The act of whistle blowing will help in increasing correctional officers' accountability and decreases the cases of torture in the criminal justice system (Menzel, 2009).

Positive consequences may include maximization of accountability and responsibility. A correctional ...