Everyday Ethics for the Criminal Justice Professional focuses on getting students to think about ethics in the day-to-day context. By placing an emphasis on practical applications as opposed to theoretical ideologies the book is more user-friendly to the student of the 21st century. Unlike other texts, it includes forensics and private security in the list of criminal justice professions, their impact on the field and what it means to "do business" in criminal justice.

The text also utilizes practical scenarios in the career fields of policing, institutional corrections, community corrections, prosecutors and judges, private security, criminal justice supervision and forensics to allow for students to apply theoretical concepts to real life criminal justice situations. The text prepares students to think and process through ethics in both the concrete and abstract. The third edition updates material throughout.