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Professional Ethics in Criminal Justice: Being Ethical When No One is Looking, 5th edition

Published by Pearson (February 9, 2024) © 2025

  • Jay S. Albanese Virginia Commonwealth University

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For courses addressing ethics in criminal justice.

Making ethical decisions in criminal justice contexts

Professional Ethics in Criminal Justice provides a framework for analyzing ethical dilemmas in criminal justice, including policing, courts and corrections. To show how ethical decisions are made, author Jay Albanese examines three ethical schools of thought and how each is applied. He draws on current events and media to raise ethical questions and to give students practice with ethical thinking.

The 5th Edition offers 20 new thought-provoking exercises, plus new current events, posing a range of new ethical scenarios for students to assess. With this expansion, learners have ample opportunity to develop their ethical-reasoning skills.

Hallmark features of this title

Illustrations of ethics

  • The three major ethical schools of thought (virtue, formalism and utilitarianism) are presented in a clear, cogent way, with emphasis on their strengths and limitations.
  • Ethical and criminal justice decision-making are integrated systematically to demonstrate the core connection between ethics and criminal justice.
  • Ethics in the Movies and Books features in each chapter ask students to assess ethical issues from popular films and books.

Active learning

  • Critical-thinking exercises in each chapter help students apply ethical principles to actual cases.
  • Ethics Checkup exercises in each chapter pinpoint ethical content in criminal justice decisions.
  • Learning outcomes and orienting questions at the start of each chapter highlight central ideas.

New and updated features of this title

Additional critical-thinking opportunities

  • EXPANDED: Ten new critical-thinking exercises have been added for a total of 70 exercises, seven per chapter. These exercises use current events to analyze underlying ethical questions.
  • EXPANDED: New Ethics Checkup scenarios have been added to each chapter. Based on actual cases, these 10 short case summaries give students a chance to practice their ethical-thinking skills.
  • EXPANDED: New current events content and examples reflect the continuing role of ethics in modern criminal justice, including police, courts, corrections, and individual liability and responsibility.
  1. Recognizing Ethical Decisions: Ethics and Critical Thinking
  2. Virtue Ethics: Seeking the Good
  3. Formalism: Carrying Out Obligation and Duty
  4. Utilitarianism: Measuring Consequences
  5. Crime and Law: Which Behaviors Should Be Crimes?
  6. Police: How Should the Law Be Enforced?
  7. Courts: How Should a Case Be Adjudicated?
  8. Punishment and Corrections: What Should Be Done with Offenders?
  9. Liability: What Should Be the Consequence of Unethical Conduct?
  10. The Future: Will We Be More or Less Ethical?

About our author

Jay S. Albanese is a professor in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. He served as chief of the International Center at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Dr. Albanese received his PhD from Rutgers University and his BA from Niagara University. He was the first PhD recipient from the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice. He is author or editor of 22 books and more than 100 journal articles and book chapters on the issues of organized crime, corruption, ethics, transnational crime and criminal justice.

Dr. Albanese is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award from Virginia Commonwealth University, the Gerhard Mueller Award for research contributions from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences International Section, the Freda Adler Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology Division of International Criminology, and the Outstanding Faculty Award, Virginia's highest honor for a faculty member at a public or private college or university.

He is a past president and fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. Dr. Albanese is also a principal with the NGO Criminologists Without Borders.

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