Professional Codes Of Conduct

6 Pages 1518 Words

Professional Codes of Conduct
All professionals in all fields of study and employment have a system in place that regulates their behavior. This is called a code of conduct. Observed and reported behaviors include productivity, attitude, professionalism, timeliness, and quality of work. These are the generalizations of all employers. It may be written, verbal, or just inferred. The criminal justice system also has a code of conduct. Police officers, corrections agents, lawyers, judges, probation officers, and parole officers all have a set of rules they follow to be in compliance with their oath as peace officers and adjudicators. This paper will discuss those codes of conduct, the governing bodies that oversee the following of the codes of conduct, which of the professionals mentioned has the highest and lowest ethical code, and how realistic the expectation of each professional group is given, the rigors of their employment. In the interest of brevity this researcher will restrict my research to the state of California.
General Information
This researcher can basically split the prior list of professionals into two main groups. One being attorneys and the other being peace officers. All judges were once attorneys and are still bound by the same association. Parole and probation officers are bound by their responsibility as peace officers. Although their particular department may have job specific duties and responsibilities their code of ethics is very similar if not identical to that of a police officer. From this point on in this paper when the researcher refers to an attorney it will be understood that the judges are part of the attorneys. When this researcher states peace officer the researcher means any sworn member of any organization that carries a badge to uphold the law.
Judges and Attorney’s
The first codes of conduct that all lawyers and judges are bound by are that of the American Bar Association. This set of con...