Ethical Treatment of Prisoners

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Ethical Treatment of Prisoners Demetrice Sterling SOC 120 Professor Bass January 7th, 2013 Referring back to the book, ethics refers to the study of the moral value of human behavior and the rules and principles that are meant to govern the behavior. Such theories include; Utilitarianism, deontology and virtue, philosophers have come up with various theories to explain the concept of ethics further. This paper will discuss the utilitarianism and my views on how prisoners are treated. If a person has committed some kind of criminal act, he or she is should be put in a designated place for a specified duration of time. It is up to the jury and the judge to determine if an individual is guilty of the crime or not. If they are found not guilty then they don’t have to face the penalty, but if they are then they are sentenced to prison for a certain amount of time depending on the crime they have committed. Being in prison, prisoners have some rights that they are deprived of such as freedom to go where they please, on a schedule of when they can eat and shower, certain time they can leave their cells, a certain time they can make phone calls. I think it’s unethical to confine an individual to the correctional facility and expose the individual to danger. I believe it’s unethical to not feed the prisoners just because they aren’t acting right or if they get into a fight with another prisoner or cellmate. Some prisoners are denied access to medical attention which is also unethical as this can result in deaths that would otherwise have been avoided. In especially the 3rd world countries the state of their prisons is deplorable. Prisoners are confined in these prisons that look like they are healthy but in all it isn’t and when the prisoners are finally released; they look very unhealthy and have more health problems than when they went in. While visiting my
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