ABSTRACT
This book has been structured to provide a guided journey through criminal justice ethics from theoretical foundations, to social ethics, to applying ethics in the criminal justice system. The overarching framework for study has been the exercise of moral imagination in thinking about justice and the legal system, public life, and professional responsibility. As we saw in Chapter 1, the moral imagination encourages us to step back from our personal prejudices and values and yet it also asks us to personally and professionally embrace the values of empathy and impartiality. The measure of a criminal justice professional is in their ability to engage with the moral imagination outside of their socially prescribed milieu, to appreciate the point of view of those most unlike themselves. Appreciation of that which is in many ways alien to us leads us to understand what we also share in common with them, namely, our moral agency.
