Introducing Ethics: An Examination of the Coverage of Ethics in Introductory Criminal Justice Textbooks

Introductory level criminal justice and criminology courses orient students to the field and often their future work. We were curious how students were introduced to ethics in these courses. Using content analysis, we analyzed 18 textbooks published between 2017 and 2023 to examine both the quantity and quality of the coverage of ethics in policing, the courts, and corrections. The findings suggested that while ethics is presented in almost all of the texts within the sample, often this discussion was not represented in the textbook index. We found the most common ways ethics was presented was through practical applications and student exercises. Findings outline the breadth of ethics discussion for policing, courts, and corrections, and the variation amongst the components. We discuss the significance of the way ethics is presented in these textbooks, with implications for teaching and suggestions for future research.