Answer

Decision-Making in Criminal Justice Organizations

Model to Increase Organizational Effectiveness

Organizational effectiveness is the primary aim of the State Juvenile Bureau as a criminal justice organization. According to Federman (2006), organizational effectiveness is the ability of an organization to access or obtain resources and utilize the resources to attain its aim. For McCann (2004), however, it is a measure of an organization’s successful attainment of the set goals, purposes, and objectives through core strategies. Simply put, organizational effectiveness is the degree to which an organization fulfills its set goals and mission, has access to the required resources, and satisfies stakeholder needs (Venkataiah, 2006). Since organizational effectiveness is contingent on organizational context, various models/approaches have been developed to explain how managers can improve their organizations’ effectiveness to meet the set goals. The main models, as outlined by Ashraf (2012) include the goal model, the system resource model, the internal processes model, and the strategic constituency model.

As a director of the State Juvenile Bureau, I will institute and draw from the strategic constituency approach to increase the bureau’s organizational effectiveness. This is because, unlike other models, strategic constituency looks at organizational effectiveness from the perspective of the organization’s impact on the key stakeholders and their interests. In Ashraf’s (2012) words, the model involves all people attached to the organization and considers effectiveness as “minimal satisfaction of all the strategic constituencies of the organization” (p. 80). This means that by employing the strategic constituency model, it will be possible to determine the degree to which the bureau meets the rehabilitation as well as humane treatment needs of juvenile delinquents while satisfying the requirements of members of the Board of Control and other key stakeholders.            

Prevalent Culture of the Bureau and Plan for Running it.

The organizational culture of the State Juvenile Bureau, just like in other organizations, consists of the bureau’s expectations, values, philosophy, and experiences that guide and shape the behavior and actions of the internal stakeholders. The culture is expressed in the stakeholders’ self-image, motivations, future expectations, and interactions with external stakeholders. The bureau’s specific prevalent culture can be described in terms of four key factors: values; the degree of hierarchy; the degree of urgency; and people-orientation vs. task orientation (SHRM, 2020). To begin with, the bureau puts more emphasis on achievements and results, and thus its culture can be described as outcome-oriented. Notably, the bureau focuses on ensuring the effective rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents through ethical and humane treatment. As such, the organization’s core values are transparency, justice for all, ethical guardianship, and humane treatment of delinquents.

Regarding the degree of hierarchy, the bureau’s culture can be described as highly hierarchical. According to SHRM (2020), an organization is said to have a high level of hierarchy if it has a well-defined organizational structure and expects or requires people to “work through official channels”. The bureau’s current culture exhibits all these characteristics because most decisions are made or influenced by the Board of Control whose members are politically appointed. In terms of the degree of urgency, the culture of the State Juvenile Bureau can be regarded as having low urgency. Decision-making and strategy formulation around the effective handling and treatment of delinquents is more methodical as evidenced by board members who still hold on to the past ideas and approaches: getting tough on adolescents and young adults is the best way to get them on track.

Having analyzed the bureau’s organizational culture, the next step is to formulate a plan for running it. The first step in the plan will be to implement a culture change process to eliminate the shortcomings of the current culture and strengthen its positives. This will involve formulating a clear strategic vision, encouraging top management’s commitment to culture change, modeling the culture change at the top level, modifying the bureau to support the change process, and selecting and socializing new employees. Next, I will engender a culture that impartially recognizes and rewards the efforts and accomplishments of all employees in the bureau. Here, the essence will be to not only motivate them to continue working with commitment but also earn their loyalty and discourage them from developing intentions to leave. In the subsequent steps, I will empower employees and delinquents to voice their concerns and grievances; encourage managers and board members to live by the bureau’s core values and mission by exemplifying ethical values; establish teams with stronger connections between members; and invest more in continuous learning and development to equip the staff with new skills for dealing with delinquents in a gentle, ethical, and human manner.

How to use the Internal and External Political Influence to the Bureau’s Advantage

Being a criminal justice organization, the State Juvenile Bureau has many internal and external stakeholders, most of whom have political influence. This influence can negatively affect the decision-making process in the bureau due to a high level of control and bureaucracy (unnecessary lengthy procedures) involved. However, the bureau will capitalize on the political influence and use it to its (bureau’s) advantage in various ways. First, with many stakeholders involved, the bureau will be able to obtain as many views and suggestions as possible during the decision-making process, thereby resulting in optimal decisions. Second, the influence will make it possible to distribute blame to external stakeholders should any of the final decisions result in undesired or devastating outcomes, rather than bearing the blame alone. Lastly, the bureau will use the political influence in its decisions as an opportunity to successfully seek funding for the changes and investments brought about by the decisions.