Justice and Law Ethical Dilemma

Justice and Law Ethical Dilemma

There are some relevant facts associated with the ethical dilemma. In the spot, the two male individuals are friends. The males have an age difference of 5 years apart. The oldest friend seems to have led the younger friend because the younger friend has never been in trouble until now. The older friend also has a record that caused him to be a juvenile delinquent.

The relevant values in this ethical dilemma are that the deals could involve ruining a life by getting sentencing. The concept is that an offender with no criminal record would get less time, if any. But an offender with a criminal record will get more time because it is not his first offense. Another concept is that one of the offenders participated only because the other offender was his friend. It cannot be proven that that is why he participated; he could be lying.

In this case, there are a lot of possible solutions, to name a few. The first possible choice is to give the offenders both the same sentence. A second possible solution is giving both offenders a lesser sentence since they mention no adult criminal record and only a juvenile record for the offender who is 25 years old. A final possible solution is giving the offender with no silly delinquent description a lesser sentence and the one with the juvenile late report a harsher punishment.

Ethical systems are in place to guide and help determine why an answer might be right or wrong (Pollock, 2019). There are several ethical systems; ethics of virtue, natural law, religion, ethical formalism, Utilitarianism, Ethics of care, and Egoism are all major ethical systems. One moral system, like religious ethics, is not beneficial in this dilemma because it is based on beliefs concerning good and evil (Pollock, 2019, p. 30). But an ethical system that is good for this dilemma is the Ethics of virtue, solely because the character will come into play (Pollock, 2019).

Since I chose Ethics of virtue, I will base my sentence on character. I will try to answer questions like, are they good people (Pollock, 2019, p. 26)? What have both offenders been doing since they became an adult? This will allow me to make a rational decision, and I will assume that neither offender has an adult criminal record. In Florida, judges do not count juvenile delinquent records. Once you are an adult, you have a clean start. I also will base my sentence on the victim and how much property was taken. Overall, the 20-year-old is not the wrong person, and this would be the 25-year-old’s first adult charge, so he just made a wrong decision. So, my decision, in this case, is to give both offenders a lesser sentence, including fines, time served, community service, and probation.

In conclusion, sentencing one or both offenders to a lesser sentence is more from an individual perspective. That is because if one offender has no criminal record, he should be given another chance. The impact it would have would not be too severe, and the consequences he would receive would be enough to deter him from future crime. A broader perspective would be to give both offenders the same sentence; the impact and consequences would be more remarkable since the one with no criminal record would have to spend time in prison.

References

Pollock, J. M. (2019). Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

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Justice and Law Ethical Dilemma

Two individuals are being sentenced for the same crime of burglary. You are the judge. One of the individuals is a 20-year-old who has not been in trouble before and participated only because the other was his friend. The second person has a history of juvenile delinquency and is now 25. Would you sentence them differently? How would you justify your decision?