CJASR3
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Organizational Conflict
- Conflict is natural in many organizations and not always bad
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
| Conflict is Positive | Conflict is Negative |
| Allows for different opinions to be recognized | Affects organizational performance |
| Promotes innovation in problem solving | Contributes to miscommunication |
| Expands the worldview of workers | Reduces trust between workers |
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Pondy’s Organizational Conflict Model
- Stage 1: Latent Conflict: conditions are present
- Stage 2: Perceived Conflict: one party to conflict recognizes conflict
- Stage 3: Felt Conflict: parties to conflict begin to feel tension or other emotions
- Stage 4: Manifest Conflict: conflict is translated into various behaviors
- Stage 5: Conflict Aftermath: the resolution of the conflict (it may still linger)
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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What Causes Conflict?
- Personality defect theory (people-focused conflicts)
- Some people are inherently trouble makers who cause conflict
- Only explains a small amount of all conflicts
- Frustrations from work environment (tend to be issue-focused conflicts)
- Personal differences
- Incomplete or inaccurate information
- Task and team interdependence
- Goal incompatibility
- Scarcity of resources
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Work Environment Sources of Conflict
- Personal differences
- People see the world differently due to varied experiences, training, etc.
- Example: one law enforcement officer has a law enforcement orientation while another has a service orientation
- Incomplete or inaccurate information
- Information gap
- Example: police officer does not attend community meetings due to lack of awareness of what community policing actually is
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Work Environment Sources of Conflict (cont’d)
- Task and team interdependence
- Resources are shared
- Output of one task becomes input for another
- Example: prosecutors decide not to charge low-level offenders arrested by police (output of police is input for prosecutor)
- Goal incompatibility
- Goals of one group conflict with goals of another
- Example: victim-witness counselor wants to protect witness from painful emotions of testifying but prosecutor needs testimony for conviction
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Work Environment Sources of Conflict (cont’d)
- Scarcity of resources
- Resource allocation, when such resources are limited, often generates conflict
- Example: patrol officers are upset that money is used to upgrade computers for detectives rather than equipment for patrol cars
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Conflict Management Strategies
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Low High
Assertiveness (own needs)
Low High
Cooperativeness (other’s needs)
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Conflict Management Strategies: Prosecutors and Defense Attorneys
- Avoiding
- Prosecutor might simply not do his/her job; apathetic
- Competing
- Prosecutor would work to secure a conviction and the sentence he/she envisions for defendant
- Accommodating
- Prosecutor might dismiss some or all charges at request of defense attorney
- Compromising
- Prosecutor still wins but does not get full sentence for defendant or conviction on all charges; defense attorney does not get acquittal but gets client a deal (plea bargaining)
- Collaborating
- Is there an option where both the defense attorney/defendant and prosecutor have their goals FULLY satisfied?
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Promoting Collaboration
- Focus on bigger goals
- Rather than argue over who gets credit for the arrest, focus on the larger goal of public safety
- Improve communications
- Share information to prevent miscommunication
- Develop negotiating skills of employees
- Helps avoid non-collaborating conflict management strategies such as competition
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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What is power?
- “Ability of an individual or a group to influence the behavior or action of another individual or group to do something they would not have done otherwise” (pg. 140)
- Power can be exercised upward, downward, or horizontally
- In other words, it is not just about superiors controlling subordinates
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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What is Personal Power?
- Power is derived from an individual’s personal characteristics
- Sources
- Expertise
- A defense attorney’s knowledge and abilities allows her to convince a client to accept a plea offer
- Personal attraction
- A charismatic SWAT team leader has the attention of his subordinates
- Personal effort
- A warden is able to control subordinates due to her tendency to walk the prison corridors and assist staff
- Legitimacy
- The police chief’s emphasis on aggressive law enforcement is easily accepted by officers since it fits in with the police subculture
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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What is Position Power?
- Power derived from the position one is holding in an organization
- Sources
- Formal position
- A correctional officer has power over inmates simply by virtue of his position
- Discretion
- A precinct commander is able to use her judgment on how to deploy resources without consulting the commissioner
- Centrality
- A correctional sergeant holds great power because of her central location in the communication networks and vertical hierarchy
- Relevance
- A department’s grant officer obtains additional power in times of budgetary crisis
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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How Can a Worker Increase Their Power?
- Dependency
- An individual or unit has power if others are dependent upon it
- Example: A crime lab has some degree of power over a police department due to dependencies
- Control of resources
- Those who control flow of resources have power
- Example: County government officials have power over the local sheriff’s department since it funds the department’s operations
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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How Can a Worker Increase Their Power? (cont’d)
- Centrality
- The importance of the activity performed
- Example: A police union gains leverage by having officers systematically call out of work sick
- Nonsubstitutability
- The task cannot be performed by others
- Example: The analytical/statistical skills of a crime analyst are not easily replaced by someone else in the police department
- Reduce uncertainties
- Help department predict and cope with future challenges
- Example: strategic planning unit is essential for an agency to see long term trends
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Decision-Making
- Employees of the criminal justice system exercise their judgment/discretion on a regular basis
- How do we encourage ethical decision making?
- Right v. wrong
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Personal Ethics
- Everyone has some set of beliefs and values framework that guides their decision making
- Two perspectives
- Ethical absolutism: moral code is unchanging and the same for all people at all times
- Ethical relativism: moral code varies from person to person and from place to place
- Implications
- If ethical relativism is supported, personal attitudes and values are paramount
- Some research suggests that police officers start with an orientation of ethical absolutism and then change to one of ethical relativism
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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Promoting Ethical Decision-Making
- Focus on the organizational culture
- Code of ethics identifying values and standards of organization
- Modeling
- Supervisors must model appropriate conduct for subordinates
- Set reasonable goals
- Encourage workers to achieve rather than engage in misconduct to achieve goals
- Use external individuals and groups
- Whistle blowing
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 5: Conflict, Power, and Ethical Issues
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