Criminal Justice Organizations: Administration and Management Chapter Three – The Criminal Justice System in its Environment

Learning Objectives Understand the influence the environment has on criminal justice agencies. Be able to discuss the major environmental influences on criminal justice agencies. Understand the political environment of the criminal justice system. Be able to explain environmental uncertainty vs. certainty. Understand how environmental forces can de-couple large organizations. Understand the process of scanning the environment. Understand how agency executives manage environmental inputs with symbolism.

Defining the Environment An organization’s environment is any external phenomenon, event, group, individual, or system. Environmental change causes organizational change. The relationship between an organization and its environment is interdependent. The organization is affected by its environment, and The environment is affected by the organization.

Defining the Environment

Defining the Environment Elements Technology Transportation and communication changes affect how criminal justice agencies do their jobs. Creates completely new forms of criminality. Law Statutory laws like ‘three strikes’ and the USA PATRIOT ACT profoundly change criminal justice agencies. Court rulings affect criminal procedures. Civil litigation influences agency behavior.

Defining the Environment Elements Economic conditions Influence the availability of resources. Unemployment may increase criminality. Demographic factors Large proportions of crime prone (young) citizens increase overall crime rates. Movement of working class and wealthy individuals from communities reduces available resources. Immigration (legal and illegal) creates new challenges in justice administration.

Defining the Environment Elements Cultural conditions Dramatic changes in culture may result in new or different laws. Competing cultures may cause social conflict. Ecological conditions Different ecological needs (e.g. agrarian, industrial, service, etc.) create their own challenges for criminal justice. Conflict over scarce resources affects criminal justice agencies. Increased awareness of ecological issues may result in additional responsibilities for criminal justice.

Defining the Environment Elements Political conditions Agencies are affected by political pressure from advocacy, interest, and constituent groups. Elected criminal justice actors are highly influenced by political conditions. Changing social and cultural norms eventually influence result in political change.

The Political Environment A complex decision-making apparatus containing both formal and informal overlapping subsystems (Fairchild and Webb, 1995). Formal Legislative bodies, city councils, etc. Courts Informal Pressure from political activists and advocates Informal pressure from the formal system

Task Environmental Elements Specific to the Criminal Justice System The forces in the environment that are related directly to the goal-setting and goal-directed activities of the criminal justice system (Steers, 1977). Six categories (Lauffer, 1984). Beneficiaries Funders Providers of non-fiscal resources Providers of complimentary services Competitors Legitimizers

Environmental States Organizations are affected by the state of their environment. Simple versus Complex Simple – homogeneous environments with few elements Complex – heterogeneous environments with many elements Static versus Dynamic Static – predictable environments Dynamic – unpredictable environments

Organizational Response to the Environment The more dynamic and complex the environment the greater the uncertainty. Environmental uncertainty Lack of information needed for decision making Inability to estimate effect prior to implementation Lack of information about the cost of a bad decision Decoupled organizations – multiple sub-environments Dominant coalition – leaders Work processors – do the actual work

Organizational Response to the Environment

Managing Environmental Forces

Managing Environmental Forces All organizations are vulnerable to environmental forces, but these can be managed. Influencing input by providing expertise to environmental factors Using symbols and rhetoric to influence the environmental response Responding to client demand Decreasing vulnerability to pressure by creating autonomy

Implications for Administrators The role of management is to mitigate the effect of environmental pressure and create predictability. Administrators should be highly protective of the organizations core technologies and competencies. Constant scanning of the environment is necessary for a proactive response to and/or the protection against environmentally caused change.

Chapter Summary There is interdependence between the criminal justice system and its environment. Changes in the environment require criminal justice agencies to adapt. New technology changes social structures, organizational opportunities, and crime patterns to which agencies need to adapt. Statutory and civil laws directly alter mandates and constraints on the system. Economic conditions affect agency budgets, scarcity in staff selection, and also may affect crime patterns and rates.

Chapter Summary Demographic shifts affect local budges and demands for service. Changes in culture require agencies to adapt to citizens with new demands for services and justice outcomes. Changing climate patterns, community size, and economic base have far ranging effects on economic and cultural conditions that, in turn, affect agencies. Political conditions faced by agencies have the most direct impact on agency mandates and constraints. The political environment is a complex process of formal and informal political subsystems.

Chapter Summary Changing environmental forces require the criminal justice agency to either make constant changes or to operate with outdated missions, policies and procedures. Agency field workers and executives work with different environmental forces and expectations. Agency field workers and executives have different understandings of the agency’s mandate and appropriate activities of its members. Scanning means observing the environment for potential change and adapting the organization to respond to it. Agencies put forward the least costly change to meet the demands from the environment. These are often symbolic.

Thinking Point and Question In an effort to increase employment, the Plantersville City Council successfully convinced a large corporation to locate a call center within its municipal boundaries. This call center employs 1,000 low wage employees. Almost immediately it became apparent that this influx of low wage employees created numerous challenges (crime, transportation, population density, etc.) for the local police department.

Thinking Point and Question Now the Mayor is trying to convince a meat packing plant to locate near the city. This plant will likely hire a large number of low wage and unskilled labor employees. As the Chief of Police, how would you use your experience with the call center to mitigate the potential environmental change that would likely result from the new meat packing facility?