CORRECTION

A photo caption accompanying an article about prison ethics on Page 1B of the City & State section Monday misspelled the last name of inmate Edward L. Brooks.

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About a dozen inmates are gathered in a classroom in small groups, debating ways to exemplify the attributes of their self-devised ethical code.

The code includes caring, respect, honesty, tolerance, fairness, integrity, loyalty and trustworthiness. At the moment, they are discussing how to act in a respectful manner.

"That means saying 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, sir' when you are talking to people older than you," said Mickey A. Phipps, 42, a murderer doing life at Harnett Correctional Institution.

"Being clean, but maybe that's self-respect," suggests Ronald M. Bullock, 25, serving time for attempted armed robbery.

Edward L. Brooks, 45, convicted of attempted murder, asks whether respect would include collecting money for a sick friend.

"That's caring," Phipps answers. "That's a good ethical value but I don't think it has anything to do with respect."

Such discussions occur twice weekly among about 180 convicted robbers, murderers and other criminals who are voluntarily taking the ethics course at 28 of the state's prisons, officials say.

These classes, which started in the late 1990s, have made the N.C. Department of Correction among the country's first prison systems to educate inmates about ethics. The Institute for Global Ethics, a Maine nonprofit, wrote the 84-page textbook and trained prison employees to teach the class.

C.J. Edwards, a retired North Carolina prison program director who helped implement the course, said it was created with the common aim of every other prison program: to reduce the number of inmates who commit new crimes after their release. The latest recidivism study by the N.C. Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission shows that 42 percent of the 18,691 prisoners released in fiscal year 1998 were convicted and reincarcerated within four years after release.

"You change people's thinking in order to change people's behavior," said Paula Mirk, a vice president of education at the ethics institute.

The Bible and Frost

In class, the inmates work through the textbook, which requires them to define their own ethical codes, understand right-versus-wrong dilemmas and analyze situations that pit two ethical values against each other. They read poems by Robert Frost and Shel Silverstein and excerpts from the Bible and the West Point honor code. They debate what someone should do if he finds a lost wallet with the owner's identification and $200 cash or whether a couple should drug their toddler to get her to sleep.

Although the state Department of Correction hasn't evaluated the effect of the ethics class, there is evidence that such education improves inmates' ability to evaluate their behavior.

During his dissertation research, E.H. Kropp, who teaches continuing education at the University of Virginia's campus in northern Virginia, used the same ethics textbook with 70 inmates at a jail in Fairfax, Va. He tested the inmates before and after taking the class, and found improvement in five areas: empathy, social responsibility, confidence, reflectiveness and satisfaction with their past behavior.

Kropp said he also found the inmates that he taught willing to acknowledge how unethical they had been.

"They understand more than we give them credit for about their own personal ethical barometer," Kropp said. "They will quickly look you in the face and say, 'I am unethical.' "

But Kropp added, "What they don't consider is the consequences. ... This idea of reflecting on the consequences was absolutely huge."

That is exactly what Lakisha Cameron, one of the two ethics teachers at the Harnett County prison, wants these inmates to learn. "I would hope they would think before acting," she said.

On Tuesday, when Cameron and another teacher led the 45-minute class, the inmates broke into small groups to write their code of ethics; then, the entire class came up with one by consensus. As a follow-up Thursday, the inmates had to provide examples of how someone could follow their ethical code by being fair, honest, trustworthy and so on.

On their honor

A few inmates seemed to struggle with understanding and defining the terms of the class discussion. Asked why he was taking the class, Keith Muse, a 22-year-old armed robber, said: "Having a high degree of ethical intensity can be a very instrumental accoutrement to have while incarcerated."

Phipps, the murderer, had to explain to another inmate what it meant to be fair. "If I had a car lot and I had a fleet of Lexuses and I sold one to you for $52,000, say, if Ronald comes along and I sold it to him for $34,000, I wasn't fair to you," Phipps explained.

Brooks asked, "If I sell you on an idea and know that that idea isn't true, is that fair?"

"That's more dishonest," Phipps responded.

At least one inmate was honest about the fact that he came to class out of self-interest rather than any desire to better himself.

"I took this class because they said it would help me be released from prison," said James F. Knight, 36, a convicted sex offender. "Most of this stuff, our parents already taught us. It brings back a lot of things that you've been taught a long time ago, and now I realize how important they are."

Dick Adams, a founding member of the N.C. Victim Assistance Network, a crime victims' advocacy group, doesn't see any problem with inmates being taught ethics -- as long as it doesn't help them get out of prison earlier.

"What they learn, the degrees they get or whatever while they are clients of the state in a confined situation should have absolutely nothing to do with the price that has been put upon them to pay for their dastardly deeds," Adams said. "They ought to pay that price -- every day of it."

Keith Acree, a spokesman for the state prison system, said inmates' participation in the ethics class does not reduce the time they spend in prison. The N.C. Parole Commission, however, considers an inmate's participation in such programs when making decisions on parole.