When Good Guys Go Bad: Behavioral Ethics and Wrongful Convictions

• In Event: Miscarriages of Justice: Fresh Perspectives

Abstract

In wrongful conviction research, it is important to understand why criminal justice actors sometimes engage in misconduct, particularly when it contributes to erroneous outcomes. However, it is equally important, if not more so, to understand the conditions under which well-intentioned criminal justice actors sometimes lapse into unethical conduct. This is so because it is likely that the vast majority of criminal justice actors discharge their responsibilities with no intent to engage in dishonest or unethical behavior. Thus, this paper applies the behavioral ethics framework to wrongful convictions to understand the individual and organizational factors that may lead to unethical conduct, with implications for wrongful convictions. The field of behavioral ethics, which has played a growing role in understanding corporate scandals, departs from a normative stance toward ethical conduct to examine “how people actually behave when confronted with ethical dilemmas” (Bazerman & Tenbrusel, 2011). Behavioral ethics examines the cognitive limitations and situational pressures that “lead even good people to engage in ethically questionable behavior that contradicts their own preferred ethics” (Bazerman & Tenbrusel, 2011). Using a case study, we demonstrate the utility of this framework for understanding wrongful convictions and discuss the implications for criminal justice reform efforts.

Authors

• Catherine L. Bonventre, Guilford College

• Robert J. Norris, Appalachian State University