What Goes Around Comes Around

                                           What Goes Around Comes Around                                      

We in the Private Investigation industry are in the business of providing information so that others can render solutions. But as a follow-up to my last article entitled “Conducting Ethical Investigations in a World Seemingly without Ethics” I would like to provide a solution.

            Years ago while attending Graduate School at The Ohio State University I submitted a term paper entitled “Some thoughts on the causes of crime and delinquency” that was later published in the State FOP Magazine then known as the Ohio Police”.

            A Chinese study I referred to in that article was the results of a program that ended crime in the Province of Lu. The study read as follows:

            “I have made a study of our prisons and I discovered that almost all the prisoners are poor, or children of the poor. I have also discovered that almost all the prisoners are ignorant or children of the ignorant. It therefore seems that poverty and ignorance make people commit our laws and commit crimes. If we could do away with poverty and ignorance then we would have no more crime in our land.”

            The question was raised as to how would one do away with poverty and ignorance?

            “The way to do away with ignorance is through education. If we educate all the people, then we do away with ignorance. We can do away with poverty by teaching the people useful trades and occupations so that they can earn and honest living.”

            When asked by the community leaders how do we bring about this change the answer was:

            “You are their leaders, it is your duty to be good and honest. People need leaders who they can follow.  If the leaders are corrupt the people will also be corrupt. But if the leaders were good, the people will follow their example and also be good.”

            The above was written by Confucius in 550 BC when he was the Minister of Crime in the Province of Lu in China.  After two years of the above program being implemented the prisons were empty.

            Recently in my home city of Columbus, Ohio and similarly as in Atlanta, GA. School administrators to include principals and teachers were criminally indicted for changing student’s grades from failing to passing as well as absences to presents in order to obtain pay bonuses; thusly dumbing down our youth to a life of ignorance and crime.

            As a personal note, it was the main reason I gave up teaching part-time at the college level.  My students couldn’t read nor write and had a hard time speaking English..

            As I watched the happenings of the fiasco in Ferguson, MO. I could only relate back to the above 550 BC findings as lawlessness and criminal activity played out on national television for all to see. It was only interrupted by so call leaders exacerbating the circumstance.

            Until we demand honesty from our leaders we are doomed to a society of ignorance, poverty and crime. The solution was found in 550 BC but then who reads.

                       

  

            

Conducting Political Investigations in a World without Ethics

Conducting Political Investigations in a World without Ethics

           

The standard for ethics in our profession was set by Kitty Hailey in her text entitled “Code of Professional Conduct, Standards and Ethics for the Investigative Profession” and “do no harm “continues as that standard. But might I query, ‘harm to whom”?

Harm to our purse or wallet; harm to our children by not provided them with the latest technology or a college education; harm to your significant other by not being able to provide for that yearly vacation; harm to your political and/ or religious beliefs and harm to all of mankind. I guess the answer depends on whose ox is being gored.

“Doing the right thing when no one is looking” has also been a past standard but in today’s world there is never a time when someone isn’t looking.  I just finished reading Sharyl  Attkinson’s best seller “ Stonewalled” and began question myself as to what the right thing was. To some her text will be pure fiction while to others it will be the blatant truth.

What do we as investigators do if placed in Shayl Attinson’s shoes?  Do we have a greater responsibility other than handing our client what we believe is a factual report? If there is an extreme injustice are we to turn a blind eye?  

Doing no harm is an object statement that each investigator faces with every investigation that he or she conducts.  When does a simple locate or domestic surveillance case become stalking?

We are all in this for the money as no one in their right mind would do this for free.  So what part of yourself are you willing to sacrifice for your client?

In conducting political investigation one must first inquire as the reason behind the inquiry. Why were you asked to conduct the investigation? Was there or is there ongoing political corruption or is your client just looking for dirt?

What happens to the truth as you come to know it? If you are a believer in Ms. Attikinson’s findings in “Stonewalled” who do you trust?

At present we are living in a world with no apparent ethics or moral standing. If you have both you become the villain to be demonized.

As an investigator you must look in the mirror daily and ask “Am I doing the right thing?” Am I doing no harm? You only have two people to answer to in the end, that’s yourself and a deity if you so believe. If an atheist only one. But most assuredly if you are a NALI member you have to answer to Kitty Hailey.