Behavioral Ethics and Wrongful Convictions: Case Studies in Ethical Failures in Criminal Justice

• In Event: Wrongful Convictions: Causes and Effects

Abstract

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). It is an emerging field located primarily within business ethics that focuses on how people actually behave when faced with ethical dilemmas and why. In this study, we extend the behavioral ethics framework to ethical failures in criminal justice. Irrespective of whether wrongful convictions result from the intentional misconduct of individual actors, these failures exist within broader organizational contexts in which actors may contribute to ethical failures without awareness. In the present study, we code reports of independent audits and state and federal inspector general investigations of allegations of misconduct in crime laboratories to understand these failures from a behavioral ethics perspective. This study lays the groundwork for more systematic studies of behavioral ethics in wrongful convictions across various criminal justice agencies and actors.

Authors

• Catherine L. Bonventre, Guilford College

• Robert J. Norris, Appalachian State University

• Matthew Sciascia, Appalachian State University