Professional and Ethical Responsibilities are the responsibilities of the counselor to follow generally accepted ethical and behavioral standards of conduct and continuing professional development. In other words, these are guidelines and general criteria that determine the behavior of a person depending on his profession. It can also be defined as a set of standards that are used to make decisions in the workplace. These are responsibilities toward customers, clients, colleagues, employees, employers, others who use one’s products and services, and others affected by them.
Competency 118 states that it is vital for the professional to consider and recognize the importance of individual differences that affect client behavior and apply it in clinical practice.
Thus, the specialist must know how personal characteristics, culture, background, lifestyle, and other factors affect the client’s behavior, how the assessment and response to treatment depend on individual differences, and how the protection of the interests of clients is related to the specifics of different cultures and lifestyles. Moreover, it is essential for the counselor to know the signs, symptoms, and patterns of violence against people and the hierarchy of needs and motivation.
Also, the specialist must have particular skills and abilities related to accepting the diversity of people. The counselor must be able to esteem cultural and lifestyle diversity in the therapeutic process, evaluate and interpret the culturally specific behaviors and lifestyles of clients, and adapt therapeutic strategies to the clients’ needs.
As for attitudes, the counselor is required to value people’s experiences, acknowledge the diversity of populations and lifestyles, and filter biases toward other cultures and lifestyles from truthful information.
Criminology: Legal Rights Afforded To The Accused
Introduction
The issue of rights provided to the accused in the criminal justice system is an area that has many interpretations and debates. There are cases when the rights of the accused are violated at the earliest stages and later. The case of John Doe presents a valuable ground for the discussion on the variety of rights that the accused have by the law. Some features need to be discussed concerning the correctness of the procedure and future Doe’s steps in proceedings.
Case Overview
Police Actions During the Arrest
After his arrest, John Doe began to incriminate himself as being guilty of shoplifting. The police officers listened to the accused and then sent him to the police station. There one can find the violation of the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination (Rogers et al., 2016). 5th Amendment says that “No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself” (U.S. Const. amend.
V). To protect that right of individuals, the Supreme Court of the US compelled law enforcement to inform accused people about their right to be silent (Rogers et al., 2016). This procedure is called Miranda warning. However, the arrest does not always mean that the arrested will hear Miranda Warning. Kerker admits that Miranda Warning “must be followed when a person is questioned after an arrest” (Kerker, 2019, p. 60). It means that when the individual starts to speak first, there is a reason to not pronounce Miranda warning.
Interpreting the case in the framework of the proposed legal theory, it seems that the case description provides an insufficient amount of information. It stated that John Doe “voluntarily” started to blame himself. If the officers did not intervene and Doe made incriminating statements without any pressure from police officers, then a Miranda warning should not be necessary stated. If the police initiated the dialogue, and Doe voluntarily answered all questions, then the police were obliged to warn the accused about his right not to testify against himself.
Police Actions after Arrest and Interview
After the interview and arrest, the police officers need to charge the crime. More precisely, they need to create a report called a “complaint” where they will summarize the evidence and investigation results (Kerker, 2019, p. 21). This document needs to have all the necessary information concerning the crime. The complaint is delivered to a prosecutor, who uses the information from police officers to continue criminal prosecution.
Difference between Preliminary Hearing and Grand Jury Proceeding
John Doe was not charged when police officers arrested him. Formal criminal charges can bring a preliminary hearing or grand jury proceeding. The brilliant summary of the peculiarities of these procedures was formulated by the attorney Gal Pissetzky. Pissetzky achieved a Doctor of jurisprudence degree in John Marshall Law School and had a very long attorney career. It is some way makes his texts reliable for writing this case study. The prosecutor plays a significant role here by submitting the complaint and choosing the procedure to decide whether an individual should be formally charged (Pissetzky, 2020).
Preliminary hearings are conducted in the open court, where the general public can be present (Pissetzky, 2020). The usual procedure involves arresting officer delivering the evidence that shows only the possibility of an individual committing a crime. For example, in the case of John Doe, police officers were able to describe the evidence that only slightly showed that Doe was guilty. The main feature is that the defense can be present at the hearings.
A Grand jury proceeding is fundamentally different in its procedure. No one, not even the defendant, can be present in the grand jury proceedings (Pissetzky, 2020). However, a defendant will receive the proceeding transcript after the session (Pissetzky, 2020). The jury listens to the evidence presented by the prosecutor, so they focus only on one side of the process. Therefore, this is a more informal and closed procedure for hearing only the prosecution.
Setting Bail for John Doe
Bail gives a person the opportunity to be free until the trial. The judge decides upon this issue by analyzing the seriousness of the crime, the presence of social connections, and past criminal charges. John Doe suits some of these requirements: his crime is relatively not serious, and he did not have a criminal record. However, Doe’s family is not in the US, so this aspect can influence not receiving the bail opportunity. Nevertheless, the main fact here is that Doe has not got money to pay the bail. Baughman (2017) admits that it is almost impossible for poor people to pay their bail, so the whole bail policy works only for riches. Therefore, the judge can allow bail, but Doe cannot afford to pay for it.
The Nature of the Arrangement Process
The arrangement is set to inform the dependant on the most important aspects of the criminal case. This stage, in some way, starts the formal process of criminal case proceedings. During this stage, the court takes the defendant’s plea, decides whether to set bail or not, designates the attorney if the defendant cannot afford to have an attorney, and sets the future schedule of proceedings (Kerker, 2019). This step will be part of John Doe’s criminal case.
Conclusion
The case of John Doe presents a brilliant ground for discussion on criminal procedure specifics. The essay discussed the police actions during and after arrest, the difference between two procedures of formal criminal charging, the policies concerning the set of bail, and the main features of the arrangement process. The overall concerns were devoted to the difficulties in Miranda warning usage interpretation and injustice concerning bail policy.
References
Baughman, S. B. (2017). The bail book: A comprehensive look at bail in America’s criminal justice system. Cambridge University Press.
Kerker, S. (2019). Introduction to Criminal Justice. Lynn University Digital Press.
Pissetzky, G. (2020). Grand jury vs. preliminary hearings. Pissetzky Law LLC. Web.
Rogers, R., Sharf, A. J., Clark III, J. W., Drogin, E. Y., Winningham, D. B., & Williams, M. M. (2016). One American perspective on the rights of accused: An initial survey of Miranda rights in a broader context. Behavioral sciences & the law, 34(4), 477-494.
U.S. Const. amend. V.
Identity In McBride’s “The Color Of Water”
Introduction
Looking for a place to fit in and have an identity is a ubiquitous quest. Self-identity correlates with the individual or self: essentially what makes us human. Most people find belonging and comprehension of the self within societies of culture, race, or religion while others find it hard to fit in with just any community and are stipulated to wander till they acquire it. This circumstance applies to James McBride and his mother, Ruth McBride in the compelling novel ‘The Color of Water’. In the beginning, McBride strived to define himself by his exterior, his raging emotions, and through external feedback from others which resulted in an identity crisis that stopped when he learns about his racial background.
Main body
From the novel, it is evident that the most significant aspect where feedback could be immediately provided is race; which involves an individual’s skin tone. McBride’s racial difference came to his attention during his early childhood years when he noticed that both white and black people often stared at his white mom and his biracial siblings. This reaction signalled that his family was different from what society regarded as acceptable and ordinary. When he compared his mother’s skin tone, he noticed that her skin was white while he was black but upon confrontation, his mother would say that “she is fair looking and always change the subject.” (McBride 21). As he was a child, this confused him given that most people he associated with were black, which made him uncomfortable about the fact that his mother is white. He yearned to be accepted by society and there was a point he thought that “his life would be better if his family just shared one skin tone, whether black or white (McBride 103). As a result, McBride had an identity crisis since he was uncertain of how he belonged to society.
Due to his mom’s secretive past, McBride spent most of his childhood years feeling confused with his identity. His mother never spoke about her past life with her children and chose only to promote secrecy, education, and religion between her children. McBride states that his mother “emphasized on total privacy, good grades, and never to trust nobody, not of their race or even conceal details of their home to any authority figures or friends” (McBride 27). Such teachings affected McBride as he matures since he is alienated and has no exposure to his culture which eventually results in an identity crisis. Eventually, McBride creates a fiction of himself; a boy in the mirror whom “he despised since he did not ache, was free, rarely ravenous, and did not have a white mom” (McBride 90-91). The boy in the mirror was a depiction of what he wished he had (freedom and happiness) and a piece of him that did not experience racial confusion as he did.
Through analysing his emotions and thoughts as well as other people’s feedback, it becomes evident where McBride belongs in society, especially when he begins to experiment with numerous groups of people. Convinced that his mother’s skin tone hindered him from fitting in society, McBride tries not to be seen with her and starts his “process of running, emotionally disconnecting himself from her (McBride 138). He dropped out of school despite being an outstanding student to search for someone he could identify with. In the process, he gets recruited by a black gang of boys and indulges in their criminal activities. Even though McBride knew of the wrongdoings the gang was facilitating, he still felt that he was “getting back at the universe for all the injustices he experienced” (McBride 141). After a while, he realizes that he is only physically rather than mentally connected to the gang and goes back to New York, although it meant going back to deal with his identity crisis again.
When he became an adult, he began to uncover Ruth’s secretive past. He understands that his mother is a Jew and experienced a tough childhood due to her father. His entire life, he did not comprehend his white mother, but here he sees that they are connected that gives him a sense of belonging and identity he yearned for. McBride states that the “uncertainty that was growing and lived inside him had dissipated and the ache that admired the boy in the mirror vanished (McBride 229). Before, McBride tried to describe himself through his skin colour as a society did. However, after uncovering this secret and his cultural background, he truly comprehends who he is; a human being with a cultural and racial background but, above all, a human.
Conclusion
Taking everything into account, McBride depicts how an identity crisis can affect the impression of the self. McBride’s confusion with his identity of whether he is black or white imparts vulnerability and disarray in him that he starts resenting his mother and a piece of him that was black. In the end, McBride understood that the issue was not that he failed to fit in society, it was that he was searching himself in the wrong places. When he did find the part of him he searched for, nothing kept him down and changed how he perceived himself.
Work Cited
McBride, James. The Color of Water. 10th ed., Riverhead Books, 2006.