*******FOR NYANYA ONLY*******

CRJ3990 DB Classmate Responses: DUE 10/08/17 @ 1PM

Instructions:

The writing should be clear and concise while using a minimum of two academic sources as support. Participation must be meaningful discussions in the forums with your peers. Your classmates responses must be a minimum of 250 words with citations, and you should consider them an essay. You cannot simply say “I agree” or “good job” in your responses, and they must well thought out replies in complete sentences.

Topic:

Why is management hierarchy an important aspect to the leadership structure of an agency? Explain the need for decision making, individual roles, and why accepting the duties of one's role is important to accomplishing objectives and goals of an agency.

Textbook for CRJ3990 only:

Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D., and Klofas, J. (2015). Criminal Justice Organizations: Administration and Management, [6 th ED]. Cengage Publishing

1st Person Response (Danny):

The leadership structure of a criminal justice agency is dependent upon the hierarchy of it's management for ensuring the agency's mission statement, goals and objectives are interpreted and effectuated through the body of the organization via strong leadership within its ranks. In Stojkovic, Kalinich, and Klofas (2015), management is the "process by which the elements of a group are integrated, coordinated, and/or utilized so as to effectively and efficiently achieve organizational objectives" (p. 8). Management is responsible for maintaining the structure of the agency by enabling the flow of information between leadership and subordinates as well as decision making, delegation of administrative duties as well as leadership in the field.

Per Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas (2015), leadership is defined as, "A process that helps to direct and mobilize people and their ideas with an emphasis on the creation of a vision and inspiring people" (p. 9). Management who may otherwise be unaware of happenings at the street level of operations, benefit from efficient and effective leadership within their ranks who have the ability to motivate their subordinates toward accomplishing organizational goals. Because leaders who manage subordinate personnel are most often operating at the levels within the main body of an organization, they should embrace their positions as unique within the hierarchical scheme of the organization. Leaders are in a position to readily identify areas of organizational concern and correct as necessary and/ or relay concerns to upper echelons of management. Leadership personnel see and hear things that affect organizations and are furthermore at an advantage to correct discrepancies prior to them becoming problematic for criminal justice administrators.

It is important to affirm among all members that the obligations that criminal justice organizations have is in the interest of the public. Whether the style of leadership is militaristic as most agencies are, or an agency who utilizes a Democratic policing strategy. The top down leadership style promotes the understanding of its members that the organizations internal climate is such that a hierarchical chain of command is an effective structure in which formal communications are transmitted and received through the hierarchy of management. A top down chain of command is embedded within the culture of the criminal justice organization because of the nature of the obligations criminal justice agencies have to the service of the public.

With all aspects of the external organizational climate considered, service to the public is after all, the bedrock by which criminal justice agency managers identify with its ethos when drafting, adopting and abiding by their organizational mission statement as well as toward accomplishing agency goals and objectives. Per Stijkovic, Kalinich, and Kofas (2015), "Management of organizations is not the sole province of executives. It is best thought of as only the process by which organizational members are directed toward organizational goals" (p. 9). This idea suggests that all members of an organization, to some degree, are managers and leaders in a system whose direction is focused toward the accomplishment of organization objectives. With this in mind I believe the quality of service a criminal justice organization provides members of a community is a direct reflection of the quality of management and leadership an organization fosters throughout its ranks. 

References:

Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D., & Klofas, J. (2015). Criminal justice organizations: Administration and management (6th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

2nd Person (Melvin):  

      The system of criminal justice is an integral part of any society, as it is responsible for upholding of social control, sanctioning those individuals, who break the law, providing criminal responsibility and rehabilitation programs, for deterring and mitigating crimes. At the same time criminal justice is the field of study, because those individuals, who were accused of crimes, also have their rights for protection against prosecution and investigatory powers. “In the United States, criminal justice policy has been guided by the 1967 President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, which issued a ground-breaking report “The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society.” (Hanes, 2005). The Commission worked out the approach towards criminal justice, which could contribute to creation of criminal justice system, securing appropriate coordination of law enforcement, correctional agencies and courts. Generally the criminal justice system is defined as important means for protecting of the society and supporting the needed standards of conduct.

        Criminal justice agencies, as well as any other organizations, are to face the challenges of organizational management and correspondingly should work out their management style in order to achieve the major aims of the organization, namely crime prevention, punishment of offenders, adjudication of criminal offenses. There are several styles of management for law enforcement agencies, correctional facilities, and criminal courts. They include scientific management, human relations management and systems management. The management style for criminal justice organizations should be directed towards obedience and command and clear hierarchy plays an important role for establishment of such management style. All the subordinates are expected to reveal their loyalty towards their organization and their supervisors.

        Hierarchy is also connected to the process of decision making, which should be centralized of decentralized. The choice of the type of decision making depends upon the central values and management philosophy of the concrete organization. The formal structure of criminal justice system has certain hierarchy/chain of command of authority in order to ensure directions for all members and divisions of the system to work in the correct direction. Also hierarchy is needed for appropriate distribution of responsibilities, authorities and coordinating of the activities. Criminal justice organization could be of different structure and size; mostly these are small organizations for rural communities. Law enforcement agencies are also different in relation to their size and their missions. There is no possibility to present any universal organizational structure for most of organizations, apart of mentioning of some common dimensions. Organizations, operating in criminal justice sphere could be subdivided into two big categories of mechanistic organizations, which are related to formal or hierarchical systems and organic organizations, which are related to professional and informal systems. Criminal justice organizations have line and staff personnel. Line personnel usually bear the responsibility for production and delivery of the services, whereas staff personnel support line personnel in their performance. (Stojkovic et. al., 2015)

        Taking into consideration the importance of the roles and functions of criminal justice system for any society, it is clear that it is necessary to pay a lot of attention to the process of decision making, to building the system of hierarchy and responsibility of individual representatives, leaders and organizations as a whole. Only under the condition that all these aspects are clearly defined and all organizations are functioning as integral parts of the whole criminal justice system, it is possible to expect that the set aims of crime deterrence, prevention and punishment, versatile social and legal protection would be accomplished.

        Overall, management hierarchy an important aspect to the leadership structure for criminal justice organization, as this is the only way towards securing accomplishment of the major aims of these organizations.

 References

 Hanes, Richard C. (2005).  Crime and Punishment in America. Volume 1. Thomas Gale. Farmington Hills, MI

Jall, Shane. (2017). Management Styles of Criminal Justice. Classroom

Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D., and Klofas, J. (2015). Criminal Justice Organizations: Administration and Management, [6 th ED]. 

                  Cengage Publishing

3rd Person (Jason):

 Management in criminal justice organizations is extremely important for a few key reasons. For one, leadership influences the culture that exists within a law enforcement or criminal justice organization(p.215). When management promotes a feeling that it supports its employees, this may helps to create a positive social culture within the agency. Management is also a buffer between political forces and the officers that are out interacting with the public. Often city, county or even state political figures will have a goal or objective that they relay to the ranking members of the agency. Often these goals may be overly broad and in many cases they are quite simply unobtainable. For example, a city manager may tell the Chief of a police agency to eliminate crime in a certain neighborhood. Its likely the city manager has no idea how to do something of this nature, or even how to reduce the amount of criminal activity in a certain area. In this case the management, may be able to explain the unachievable nature of what is being asked. In other cases the management may set up to make a real impact in the area and assign additional officers or duties to help with a reduction.  The management in this case must be able to make the decision necessary to make movement towards the goal that the city manager wants. In other cases the complaints come from the public, and city hall may also receive similar complaints about crime. So in this example, the police will get, complaints from two different external forces, though the source of the complaints may actually be the same. Management needs to be able to compile and sort through the information that is being received so that it can make a decision in how to best address the problem. Compounding the problem that criminal justice organizations face is the fact that often these organizations are given messages that lead to role conflict. For example, a chief may be told to stop every person in a certain neighborhood and "check them for drugs", to a mayor this seems like a perfectly rational police technique, but most people in the police field, this seems intrusive and illegal. Now the chief must decide which role to follow, that of an enforcer and protector of rights and the law or that of a city employee. Each decision carries with it, its own set of potential outcomes. This may have been the case in New York, where management instituted a policy that was contradictory to laws. In New York, police officers were ordered to stop and search people as they encountered them, regardless of the circumstances or whether or not they any legal authority to search them(Goldstein, J. 2013). This became an issue as law suits were filed, and was eventually settled in the court system. 

Stojkovic, S. Kalinich, D. Klofas, J. (2015). Criminal Justice Organizations Administration and Management. Cengage Learning. Sixth Edition. Stamford CT.

Goldstein, J.(2013) Judge rejects New Yorks stop and frisk policy. New York Times. 

4th Person (Aimee):

Management hierarchy is an important aspect of the leadership structure of an agency because each level of the management hierarchy is responsible for the department’s decision making, individual roles, and accomplishing objectives and goals.  The structure of most departments has a traditional flow of authority, where the authority flows from the high-ranking decision makers down to the baseline employee.  This organizational flow represents how personnel is organized within an agency and might illustrate how the agency fits into the community’s political structure.  With the flow, more commonly referred to as the chain of command, it provides a channel of communication that allows a path from management to personnel to carry out orders and decisions. 

Our text states that “Decision making is one of the most important concerns for managers in all organizations.” (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015) Managers take on the responsibility of making a decision that often results in long-term consequences.  By doing so, managers have to consider the long-term goals and objectives for the department.   Most law enforcement managers developed their decision-making skills in the field as patrol officers.  Although they are faced with making important decisions on a regular basis, their decisions are usually based on clear department policies and procedures.   Law enforcement organizations often make three kinds of decisions, which are command decisions, consultative decisions, and consensus decisions.  Despite the method they choose, the number one key to effectiveness is that the managers that are involved with the decision know what type is the best decision for the circumstance.  Therefore, decision making is needed for the better good of the origination in short-term and long-term goals and functioning. 

With the improvement of training programs over the years, much advanced training is now offered to managers. In saying this, an example would be the training programs offered within the state of Georgia. The Georgia Public Safety Training Center offers Supervision 1-3 and then continues with management level training. Also in today’s times, most departments require some type of higher education for managers. Those who hold bachelor’s degrees can also attend Masters programs such as the command college. With this time of education along with the aforementioned policies and decision making, statically makes for a well-managed agency.

Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D., & Klofas, J. (2015). Decision making. In Criminal justice organizations | Administration and management (6th ed., pp. 341-379). Stamford, CT: Cengage.