Need back in 10 hours from now
Jnalia07
PowerPointChapter3.pptStojkovic/Kalinich/Klofas
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Administration and Management
Chapter Three
THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN ITS ENVIRONMENT
● Technological
● Legal
● Political
● Economic
● Demographic
● Ecological
● Cultural
Environmental Forces
Environmental Forces
As environmental conditions change, public agencies must adapt.
● Forces affect agencies’ missions, policies, and procedures.
● Agencies that fail to adapt lose resources or become extinct.
Technological change factors:
Defining the Criminal Justice Environment
● The automobile’s impact on public safety
● Community policing has reduced the use of patrol cars
● Computers speed communications
● Video taping reduces guesswork
● New high-tech crimes require investigation
Legal factors:
Defining the Criminal Justice Environment
● Crimes, sentences directed by legislation
● The impact of the USA PATRIOT Act
● Case law reviews state and federal cases
● Civil litigation filed against CJ agencies
● Federal cases have greatest impact
● Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased number of women, minorities on CJ agency staff
● The Act also significantly increased the numbers of inmate civil suits
Economic factors:
Defining the Criminal Justice Environment
● Agencies gain resources in good economic times.
● Research on unemployment and crime rates conflicts:
- Economic conditions linked to increased
rates of incarceration for African-
American males
- Prison populations increase as
unemployment rates rise
- Income inequity better indicator of crime
than poverty or unemployment
Demographic factors:
Defining the Criminal Justice Environment
● Age, sex, race, ethnicity, and size of community population impact crime rates:
- Majority of crime done by people under
age 25
- Large cities have higher crime rates
● Migration/immigration impact demography and community organization:
- Immigrants converge in urban areas
- Merging culture manifest criminal
behaviors
Cultural factors:
Defining the Criminal Justice Environment
● Laws are codified social norms of a culture:
- American culture is heterogenous and
dynamic
- Public expectations of agencies conflict
- We lack consistency in norms, values
● Examples:
- Prohibition
- War on drugs
Ecological conditions:
Defining the Criminal Justice Environment
● Geographic location
● Climate
● Size of community
- Small tend toward homogeneous cultures
● Economic base:
- Industrial
- Service
- Agrarian
Political conditions:
Defining the Criminal Justice Environment
● Governments react to public opinion
● Political climate can affect court decisions
● Political pressure directed by interest groups
- MADD: DUI enforcement
- NAACP: Black citizens’ interests
- FSC: Humane reform in prisons
- Police and corrections officer unions
● Cultural views and values become political
Federal, state, and local legislators:
Criminal Justice System Political Environment
● Pass laws and allocate resources;
● Convey public demands; and
● Are influenced by interest group pressure.
Court system:
● Judges make value-based decisions
● Judges reflect regional or political values
Informal pressures:
● Legislatures interfere with operations
● Agencies respond to public pressure
Criminal Justice System Task Environment
Environmental forces are directly related to agency goals.
All elements are interdependent.
Simple environment:
Environmental States
● External forces or homogeneous and few in number (e.g., small town police agency)
Complex environment:
● External forces are heterogeneous and numerous (e.g., large city police agency)
Static environment:
● Constant and stable over time (e.g., jails with same number and type of inmates)
Dynamic environment:
● Unpredictable and changing over time (e.g., urban police work)
Environmental uncertainty:
Organizational Response to Environment
● Dynamic and complex environments have greater uncertainty :
- Lack of information to guide decision
making
- Unknown cost of incorrect decisions
- Inability to estimate how probabilities will
affect a decision
● An organization’s ability to appropriately respond to its environment is pivotal.
Organizational Response to Environment
● Large organizations may become decoupled (face multiple environments and interact with each at different organizational levels).
● Environments may have sub-environments:
- Political-legal (dominant coalition—small
group that oversees activities and dictates
policy decisions)
- Service-delivery (work processors—
majority of employees)
● Cues, pressures, and constraints of dominant coalition may differ from those of work processors.
Organizational Response to Environment
● Decentralizing large bureaucracies is done so work processors have flexibility to deal with local clientele and respond to demands of local constituents.
● Decentralization effectively recognizes that local environmental dimensions may differ at various levels, and that the organization may face more than one environment.
Organizations are open systems dependent on environmental systems for direction and resources:
Managing Environmental Forces
● CJ agencies get direction and resources from political-legal and cultural systems
● CJ agencies protect their boundaries by:
○ invoking bureaucratic power in both
formal and informal political systems, or
○ conforming/appearing to conform to
environmental demands through
symbols and rhetoric.
Influencing input:
Managing Environmental Forces
● Legislators get input from agency heads
● Agencies argue their positions based on their expertise, and gather public support to influence political system
● News media act as conduit between agencies and environment
Using symbols:
● Agencies use symbols to make it appear they are conforming with public’s needs
Responding to client demands:
Managing Environmental Forces
● Agencies go beyond or simply ignore goals to meet clients’ needs
● Police are given great discretion to get the job done
● Organizations seek to control staff through procedural controls, but it is typically difficult to accomplish
● The operational boundaries of CJ agencies are permeable
Decreasing vulnerability to pressure:
Managing Environmental Forces
● Agencies that are dependent on their environments, or that have limited resources, or that function within turbulent environment are forced to adapt or fail
● Agencies must be open to interaction with the community
Implications for Administrators
● Administrators must protect the agency against improper environmental intrusions.
● Administrators must be in tune with the environment to allow them to:
- predict environmental changes and
initiate planned changes, and
- resist proposals to work in a closed
system.
● The administrator bears responsibility for the agency’s relationships with its environment .
