1. Criminal Justice Organizations: Administration and Management
Chapter One – Basic Concepts for Understanding Criminal Justice Organizations
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2. Learning Objectives
Comprehend criminal justice administration history.
Understand a definition of an organization.
Comprehend the concept of management.
Know the concept of leadership.
Comprehend the public context of both management and leadership.
Define and comprehend open-system theory.
Explain the importance of complex goals for criminal justice administration.
Know the complex environment of criminal justice administration.
Understand complex internal constituencies and criminal justice administration.
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3. What is an Organization?
Organizations are defined in terms of their:
Structure,
Purpose, and
Activity.
Weber (1947) distinguished corporate groups from other social organizations by;
Extent to which they limit admission to the group, and
Whether they include leaders and staffs.
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4. What is an Organization? Bureaucracy
Max Weber (1947)
A bureaucracy is characterized by:
Limited admission
Leader and staff
Rigid hierarchy of authority
Division of labor
Formal rules
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5. What is an Organization?
Weber said organizations represented the natural trend in society toward what he called rationalization:
Rationalization is the process whereby an increasing number of social actions and interactions become based on considerations of efficiency or calculation rather than on motivations derived from custom, tradition, emotion or charisma.
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6. What is an Organization?
Bureaucratic theory:
Specialization
The division of labor
Unity of command
Putting one person in charge of a situation and an employee
Merit and ability
Basis for hiring and promotion
Ruflification
Formal rules that govern action
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7. What is an Organization?
Chester Barnard ( )
“a system of consciously coordinated activities of forces of two or more persons”.
This definition suggests boundaries, but:
Allows for a variety of structures.
Does not limit purpose.
Is unclear whether activities are ‘organizational’ or merely collective behavior, but makes it clear that courts, public defenders’ offices, and other components of the CJ system may be studied as organizations.
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8. What is an Organization?
Organizations
Develop cultures,
Are political,
Serve, and sometimes fail to serve, their member’s personal needs,
Actively seek survival,
Compete for resources,
Are internally complex, and
Exist in a complex environment
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9. What is Management? 6
Carlisle (1976)
Defined as: The “process by which the elements of a group are integrated, coordinated, and/or utilized so as to effectively and efficiently achieve organizational objectives.”
Definition however, ignores the notion of ‘office’ or ‘position’.
Management is not the sole province of managers and supervisors.
Non-supervisory personnel can perform the management function.
Management is an ongoing process; it does not constitute an end in and of itself.
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10. What is Leadership? Klotter (1990) Dupree (1989) Leaders focus on
“refers to a process that helps direct and mobilize people and their ideas…”
Dupree (1989)
Leadership is tribal in nature and focuses on an organization’s symbols, rituals and culture.
Leaders focus on
Motivating employees,
Developing organizational culture, and
Changing the organization.
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11. What is Management? 6
Are law enforcement officers, corrections officers, assistant district attorneys, judges, and others managers? Or is this responsibility primarily with the Chief of Police, Sheriff, D.A., Chief Judge, Warden?
Is it possible to manage and not know what the purpose of the organization is? Mission, values, goals, etc.
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12. Management vs. Leadership
Managers
Leaders
Insure compliance with existing processes
Focus on planning and budgeting to achieve short term goals
Seek to achieve rationality by enforcing rules
Concerned about employees doing things right
Question existing processes
Focus on more long term strategic planning
Seek opportunities to change the organization and its culture
Concerned about employees doing the right thing
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13. What is Leadership?
Kotter: The purpose of leadership is to bring about movement and useful change, while the role of management is to provide stability, consistency, order and efficiency.
Good managers produce orderly, predictable results; keep things on schedule and within budget; and make things work efficiently.
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14. What is Leadership?
On the other hand, good leaders produce important, positive change by providing vision, aligning people's efforts with the organization's direction, and keeping people focused on the mission and vision by motivating and inspiring them.
Clearly, organizations benefit from good management.
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15. What is Leadership?
Good leadership, like good management, helps an organization to succeed.
Schein and others say organizational leadership requires reference to the manipulation, management, and even the destruction of organizational culture.
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16. What is Leadership?
Managers focus on planning, budgeting, setting short-term goals, and developing procedures to meet those goals.
Leader:
Establish a shared vision, the motivate and inspire group movement toward that vision.
Challenge existing processes and systems
Create change and
Practice the art of statesmanship
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17. Management and Leadership in the Public Sector
Criminal justice administrators are constrained by
Civil service protections, and
Obligations and expectations due to their public status designation.
The legislative process produces inconsistencies that further complicate the pubic manager’s role.
Public sector employee unions and associations are often quite powerful and influential within the organization.
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18. Open-Systems Theory
Initially the focus was on the efficiency of internal processes (Taylor 1919, 1947).
This is a closed-system perspective wherein organizations are viewed as
Self contained, and
Unresponsive to their environments.
All elements in a closed-system are connected, but only internally.
Communication follows the lines of hierarchy.
Power and authority are a function of office.
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19. Open-Systems Theory
The closed-system model has been largely discredited, especially for criminal justice organizations.
Organizations that exist within open-systems influence and are highly influenced by the environments in which they exist.
Criminal justice examples
Community policing
The interaction between the police and prosecutors
Legislative changes in criminal statutes and sentencing
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20. Complex Goals
Criminal justice organizations have both multiple and conflicting goals.
Simon (1964) first recognized this organizational complexity.
The pursuit of all goals impinges on the degree of goal attainment.
Not possible for all goals to be achieved equally.
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21. Complex Goals
Complexity caused by goal conflict can result in inefficiencies.
Conversely, goal conflict may actually be necessary.
Due process constraints placed on the police by the courts insures civil liberty
Plea bargaining by prosecutors reserves important resources for more serious cases.
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22. Complex Environment
Organizations exist within environments that are made complex by competing interests and goals.
Police departments are particularly vulnerable to complex environments.
Crime control versus Due process conflict
Lack of universal agreement among the public on what the police department should do.
This results in police departments becoming more bureaucratic and paramilitary in order to mitigate outside influence.
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23. Complex Environment
The environment also determines how pubic organizations are evaluated.
Clients may not be legitimizers.
Prisoners (clients) are not viewed as legitimate evaluators of the organization.
Mission, not the marketplace, determines value.
Law enforcement may be considered more important than corrections.
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24. Complex Internal Constituencies
Constituencies within the organization influence the organization’s structure and function.
In most situations these effects are in the form of a struggle for power.
Employee associations and unions
Inmates in prisons and jails
Staff employees
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25. Chapter Summary
Organizations are structured along three dimensions: structure, purpose and activity.
Organizations are managed through a process but management functions are not limited to a specific office within the organization.
Criminal justice organizations both affect and are affected by the key elements of their environments.
Unlike closed system theory, which emphasizes key operational components of an organization, open systems theory hypothesizes that criminal justice organizations are malleable and influenced differentially by elements of the environment.
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26. Chapter Summary
Criminal justice organizations have many goals and compete with one another for limited resources.
Criminal justice agencies have varied and complex environments that make criminal justice administration more complex.
Criminal justice organizations are evaluated, in part, by the perceptions of what various environments expect of them.
Criminal justice organizations are influenced by many internal groups, such as line personnel, support staff and others who perform the work.
Internal groups are powerful, but their power is being challenged due to budgetary concerns.
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27. Thinking Point and Question
An intelligence analyst with the Bigton Police Department has uncovered convincing evidence of an active juvenile gang within the city.
The intelligence suggests this gang is active in numerous criminal enterprises.
Applying the information from this chapter, would this juvenile gang fit the definition of an organization?
If not, why not?
If so, then how would you apply your knowledge of organizations to suppressing this gang’s criminal activities?
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