The Importance of Integrity in Local Criminal Justice Systems

The following article is to highlight the importance of creating strong justice systems so as to help tackle issues like hate crimes, corruption, extremism, intimidation, etc. The closer we align institutions to their central purpose, the more they will be supportive frameworks that help foster efficient use of resources and create pro growth environments. Strong justice systems help us in many ways as they create safe neighborhoods, uphold contracts, settle disputes, respects rights, etc. so as to develop a pro growth environment our nation needs to maintain the long term health of a democratic society. 

The Importance of Integrity in Local Criminal Justice Systems

Imagine if you could do what you want, say what you want, enrich who you want, harm who you want and target who you want with no recourse through local systems? One might postulate that the cause could be too much power concentrated in too few hands and it logically would encourage corruption without appropriate checks and balances. Such behaviors might represent a situation with a closed system that impacts everything associated or influenced by that system through a long tail of narrow decision making. 

(Notes: Other systems must maneuver to hedge the poor decision making of non optimal systems (NOS). Corruption impacts many other aspects of society and it can be traced back to its source.) 

Now imagine if multiple people came forward with concerns of mistreatment and these were quickly sidelined and dismissed based on racial, religious, ideological, and extremist leaning views that persist in some social networks. Those who were socialized into those networks feel particular disdain for those with degrees of difference. Where the law makes no distinction, these individuals do.

If we further went down a line of thinking and added that each time citizens came forward they risked retaliation in a way that perpetuated the silence. You could block them from jobs, follow them home, engage in threats and intimidation, use rumors to restrict opportunity, frowned on participation, subtle ways of restricting positive engagement in the community, ignored hate based enrichment, and for some officials double down on protecting the corruption versus embracing positive change.

The good news is that most people and officials would agree with the importance of maintaining integrity within our local criminal justice systems. The bad news is that far too often there are no checks or balances against those who violate our cherished national and historical laws. That is something we need to work on. As a people we are becoming more aware of the problem and will likely adjust awareness in new ways of ensuring our professed and enacted values are in as close in alignment as we can make them. We learn from understanding.            

Integrity in the Criminal Justice System and the Public Integrity Section

A Few Questions to Ponder

What kind of character and values within the Justice system would you like to see? 

How does accountability become a deterrent against future corruption?

Should there be more controls for internal poor behaviors and would they hamper or improve effectiveness in police outcomes?

Are there unexplored avenues of adjusting culture to create more open systems that are able to take in new environmental expectations?