Living in the Gray: Lessons on Ethics from Prison Jana L. Craft Received: 11 January 2012 / Accepted: 28 June 2012 / Published online: 17 July 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 Abstract Often overlooked once they are remanded to custody, incarcerated former business executives can pro- vide valuable insight into the inner workings of organiza- tions while also contributing to the dialogue on of business ethics within the undergraduate business curricula. This paper summarizes experiences of white collar offenders obtained through a questionnaire-based research method to elicit lessons on ethics from prisoners and to provide a unique learning experience for undergraduate business students. Data was collected from 12 questionnaire responses (n = 12) which resulted in four major themes involving business ethics: core values, ethical responsibil- ity, ethics training, and ethical culture. Narrative responses, integration of ethical decision-making research and student discoveries are included for each theme. Keywords Ethics Á Ethical decision-making Á Ethics training Á Ethical business culture Á White collar crime In a speech given in 1899, the U.S. Ambassador to Eng- land, E. J. Phelps, stated, ‘‘The man who makes no mis- takes does not usually make anything.’’ As business professionals, it is unwise to brag about never having made a mistake because mistakes and failures are often cele- brated as stepping stones for success and innovation. As a college professor charged with teaching business ethics at the undergraduate level, I often felt my students were disengaged when it came to understanding their own core values and ethical underpinnings. Students seemed dis- connected from both ethical theory and the reality of ethical decision-making. The concept of moral decision- making was abstract, murky, and difficult to apply to their current lives. I set out to change this view by eliciting help from incarcerated business executives to give insight into the complex nature of ethics based on their ethical failings. This paper illustrates my experience using a questionnaire- based research method and student reflection on experi- ences of incarcerated former business executives to elicit lessons from participants the lessons they learned about ethics. Often overlooked once they are remanded to cus- tody, incarcerated former business executives can provide valuable insight into the inner workings of organizations while also contributing to business ethics dialogue within the undergraduate business curricula. To provide my students with the opportunity to learn about the consequences of unethical decision-making, I traveled to Taft Correctional Institution, a federal mini- mum security prison in California to meet with Mark, 1 a 45-year old man incarcerated for drug offenses. Taft Fed- eral Correctional Institution houses over 2,500 offenders in two separate sections: a minimum security Federal Cor- rectional Institution (FCI) and a separate but adjacent Federal Prison Camp (FPC), both for male prisoners only. The Federal Bureau of Prisons operates facilities at five different levels of security: minimum, low, medium, high, and administrative. Taft Federal Correctional Institution is a minimum security facility. Minimum security facilities typically have lower staff-to-inmate ratios and more relaxed security barriers than higher security facilities. The type of housing for a minimum security facility is pod- based; in essence, beds in both Taft FCI and FPC are J. L. Craft (&) School of Business, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Winona, MN 55987, USA e-mail: jcraft@smumn.edu 1 Names have been changed. 123 J Bus Ethics (2013) 115:327–339 DOI 10.1007/s10551-012-1398-z