| Author | Message | ||
     bb (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted From: 204.114.53.254 |
I think there are plenty of 'potential' ethical issues. In the sense that we as LPEs are constantly presented with chances to do the ethically wrong thing, but choose not to (hopefully). The access we are given to evidence from criminal cases is such that we can tamper with it, alter it, add to it (i.e. throw in a latent print lift card that was never part of the original case to frame someone), or even destroy it. But we don't. There are some agencies who have only ONE examiner, which means his/her identifications are never verified. Imagine what doors of opportunity THAT opens up. Almost everywhere, exclusions are not verified. What if an examiner sees the suspect's name, realizes the suspect is a friend, doesn't report it, and excludes the person? Twice last year did coworkers of mine have to report to our supervisor that they knew the suspect on a case they were assigned. None of us would have been the wiser if they had not spoken up. Then there are all of the studies done on bias. We have to not let other examiner's conclusions influence our decision-making abilities during the process during of verifications. There is also contextual bias - not letting the opinions of Detectives ("oh we know it's him, he's a routine criminal") influence our decisions. There are also the ethical issues of reporting mistakes to supervisors. Say one examiner is conducting a technical review of another examiner's work, and a mistake is found. Maybe a missed identification, or a wrong suitability call. The reviewer knows that if they report it, the original examiner could get into serious trouble. They are friends. What does the reviewer do? This job relies heavily on the morals and ethics of the people who are examiners. | ||
| Sarah K Dwyer (Skdwyer) Member Username: Skdwyer Post Number: 1 Registered: 02-2013 |
I am a CLPE. I have just started my first class for my Master's degree - Ethics and the CJS. My final "paper" must be a journal article worthy of publishing. I decided to stick with what I know - latent prints. However, in a good way, I really can't think of any ethical issues that constantly plague our community or us as individual examiners. I'm looking for any advice/suggestions! What would you guys like to read about in the JFI? |
