Front-page test

A common approach to think through decision-making when faced with an ethical dilemmas involves the “front-page test.” This quick ethics test asks how you would feel if the action you’re contemplating was published on the front page of a newspaper. The thought behind this test is, of course, that if you’d make a different decision than the one you’re contemplating if that decision was going to be published, perhaps it’s a poor ethical choice. This test comes it different variations–“what decision would you make if your child or your God were watching are two examples.

For this discussion, utilize Internet search engines to identify a scenario from a high-profile news story in which a criminal justice practitioner in corrections demonstrated an ethical transgression that does not pass the “front page test” and summarize the unethical decision made.

Presumably the practitioner did not imagine their transgression would make “front page news.” Beyond that miscalculation, discuss how might the practitioner have justified the decision to themselves. For some ideas on how one rationalizes unethical behavior, see a summary of Jo-Ann Tang’s journal article on the topic