Morality Stories, Third Edition

What are we willing to sacrifice for the welfare of others? Can we face the suffering we have both given and received? Is there room for mercy in the heart of justice? These and other questions related to the moral depth and ethical inclination of the human condition are explored in the 24 original short stories that complete this book.


Morality Stories encompasses personal, social and criminal justice themes and dilemmas, such as Death Row, homelessness and prejudice. In each story, persons are judged as much by the good they omitted to do as by the bad actions they chose to carry out. Acknowledging regrets, expressing remorse and accepting responsibility are demonstrated in many of the stories as a means of moving toward moral courage and decision-making.


The third edition of Morality Stories includes six new stories that cover a variety of ethics and justice themes including the consequences of a correctional officer/inmate romance, prosecutorial misconduct, correctional intervention with a career criminal, Wall Street injustice, the effects of bullying, and childhood neglect.


“Morality Stories holds a real fascination for persons concerned with good and evil. The book's moral is translucent: 'An evil act doesn’t necessarily make a person who committed it evil...'” — Gilbert Geis, University of California at Irvine


“The authors, including the work of Scott Braswell in this volume, have once again produced an exemplary tool for ethical pedagogy in Morality Stories… [This book] is a well-done and valuable contribution to the literature of criminal justice and criminology… The book will serve as an excellent companion volume to a primary ethics textbook for the undergraduate, the graduate, or even the doctoral course in ethics.” — International Criminal Justice Review (on the second edition)