Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 2: Open Versus Closed Systems
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Organizational Theory
- “A way to examine and analyze organizations… based on patterns and trends in organizational design and behavior” (pg. 27)
- Models of organizations
- Closed systems: explain organizations via internal events
- Open systems: explain organizations via external events
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Chapter 2: Open Versus Closed Systems
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice Chapter 2: Open Versus Closed Systems
Closed: A prison riot, for example, might be explained by reference to internal factors only (poor training, weak leadership, physical structure of facility).
Open: A prison riot might be explained by reference to external factors (larger gang tensions imported into the prison, racism in society, diminished funding by government agencies)
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Closed-Systems Models (Classical Perspective)
- Overview
- The external environment is stable and predictable and does not present problems for the organization
- Organizations are sealed off from the outside
- Emphasis is on the efficient management of the organization
- Emerged during the Industrial Revolution to improve the efficiency of work (machine models)
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
The environment includes things outside of the organization such as the community, legal decisions, cultural and demographic forces, etc.
Since the environment is largely unchanging, classical theorists suggested a single best way to organize.
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Closed-Systems Models (Classical Perspective)
- Three closed-system model subfields
- Scientific management
- Administrative management
- Bureaucratic management
- Commonalities across subfields
- Individuals are rational
- All people will behave the same way in similar situations
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Rational individuals: people act logically and correctly
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Classical Perspective #1: Scientific Management
- Father of scientific management was Frederick Taylor
- Characteristics
- There was a correct way to perform every task; goal was to identify and document those procedures
- Scientific study of tasks, especially through time motion studies
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
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Classical Perspective #1: Scientific Management (cont’d)
- Role of managers
- Develop standard procedures for each job
- Select workers with skills and abilities and match them to tasks
- Train workers in standard procedures
- Monitor and support workers through careful planning of work
- Supervisors were experts in certain areas; they were not authorities in areas beyond their areas of expertise
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
In criminal justice agencies, as in other agencies, the authority of managers often goes beyond their areas of expertise.
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Classical Perspective #1: Scientific Management (cont’d)
- Motivation
- Monetary incentives
- Piecemeal pay: standard wage for standard output; more pay for exceeding standard output
- Criticisms of scientific management
- Managerial authority extended beyond area of expertise
- Faulty assumptions about workers (e.g., won’t all act the same in similar situations)
- Workers ignored for all but physical labor (e.g., rules guide behavior limiting the thinking skills of workers)
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Standard wages typically increased as the new procedures for performing work increased overall output for the organization. However, the increase was not equal. A doubling of output, for example, did not lead to a doubling of pay.
Faulty assumptions: Officers responding to a scene or probation officers dealing with a probationer do not all act the same way.
Workers ignored: the mind is not used; follow the manual
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Classical Perspective #2: Administrative Management
- Linked to Henri Fayol
- Scientific management frontline workers
- Administrative management managers
- Identified 14 principles of management
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Managers were the emphasis of Fayol’s principles of management.
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Classical Perspective #2: Administrative Management (cont’d)
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
- Criticisms
| 1. Division of work | Centralization |
| Authority | 9. Scalar chain |
| Discipline | Order |
| 4. Unity of command | 11. Equity |
| 5. Unity of direction | 12. Stability of personnel tenure |
| 6. Subordination of individual interest to the general interest | Initiative |
| 7. Remuneration of personnel | 14 Espirit de corps |
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
- Division of work: divide work into smaller tasks
- Authority: managers need authority to command staff
- Discipline: required in order to ensure rules are followed
- Unity of command: only one boss giving orders to each worker
- Unity of direction: similar tasks grouped together under a manager
- Subordination of individual interest to the general interest: goals of organization paramount
- Remuneration of personnel: fair compensation
- Centralization: power and authority at top of organization
- Scalar chain: single line of authority from top to bottom
- Order: clear and easily understood rules
- Equity: managers should display fairness in dealing with subordinates
- Stability of personnel tenure: employees learn with experience
- Initiative: work environment should allow for some initiative in carrying out work
- Espirit de corps: managers should foster morale
Criticism: Incompatible with modern management thought. Workers are trained to make decisions and act appropriately. Less reliance on centralized organizations with authority at the top of the hiearchy.
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Classical Perspective #3: Bureaucratic Management
- Linked to Max Weber
- Addresses the organization as a whole– the intersection of workers and managers
- Five major components of bureaucratic management
- 1. Impersonal social relations: favoritism should be eliminated; workers behave according to rules
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Impersonal social relations: prevent favoritism and nepotism. Reduces likelihood the friendships and connections will cloud judgment.
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Classical Perspective #3: Bureaucratic Management (cont’d)
- Five major components of bureaucratic management
- 2. Employee selection and promotion: based on skills and competence
- 3. Hierarchy of authority and spheres of competence:
- Hierarchy based on amount of power and authority (more at top).
- Authority is in position, not person in position
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Authority is in position: Weber was writing against traditional authority and charismatic authority structures where people were given authority because of who they were. Once that person left, the organization would suffer. In bureaucratic organizations, the position always retains the authority, regardless of who is in that position.
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Classical Perspective #3: Bureaucratic Management (cont’d)
- Five major components of bureaucratic management
- 4. System of rules and procedures
- Rules would guide decisions, rather than personal judgment
- Maintain continuity across time
- 5. Task specialization
- Divide work into simpler tasks
- Foster development of expertise and efficiencies
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Rules ensure consistency in operations, especially across time.
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Classical Perspective #3: Bureaucratic Management (cont’d)
- Benefits of bureaucracy
- Match right person to job
- Efficiency as organization has well qualified managers and experts at performing tasks
- Duplication of work is eliminated
- Career occupation with rewards earned from successful performance
- Rules and procedures eliminate impartiality and create standarization
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
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Classical Perspective #3: Bureaucratic Management (cont’d)
- Problems with bureaucracy
- Rulification is impossible, stifles creativity, and inhibits flexibility
- Hierarchy limits communication, creating a grapevine to disseminate information
- Task specialization prevents workers from seeing the whole job
- Departmentalization mentality leads people to see their work as more important than the organization’s work
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
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Open-Systems Models (Humanistic Perspective)
- Origins in 1920s: Hawthorne studies at Western Electric plant
- Lighting studies: productivity increased for two groups of workers, regardless of lighting level changes
- Hawthorne effect: special attention given to workers led to feelings of pride and productivity
- Lasting impact of Hawthorne studies
- Social factors matter in the workplace; workers bring attitudes and sentiments to job
- Informal groups operate alongside formal structures in organization
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
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Open-Systems Models (Humanistic Perspective) (cont’d)
- Four primary elements of open-systems approaches
- Individual differences: people are different and react differently
- Motivation: workers can be motivated to achieve organizational goals
- Mutual interest: individuals have a need to socialize and group themselves at work
- Human dignity: employees need to be treated with respect
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Individual differences: run contrary to assumptions of scientific management
Motivation: pay is only one motivator; social factors matter
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Human Relations Perspective #1: Total Quality Management
- Enhance products and services by taking into account suggestions by workers and the voice of the customer
- Four elements of TQM
- Employee involvement
- Customer focus
- Continuous improvement
- Benchmarking
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Employee involvement: worker input is important to improving quality of good or service
Customer focus: since consumers are judge of quality, focus on the items customers view as important
Continuous improvement: always seeking to improve performance
Benchmarking: examining peers to find areas for improvement
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Human Relations Perspective #2: Supply Chain/Synergy Model
- Supply chain perspective: the interrelations between subsystems where the actions of one subsystem affect the operations of another.
- Subsystems serve as suppliers and customers
- Synergy: when these subsystems are coordinated, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
The criminal justice system is comprised of police, courts, and corrections subsystems. The system as a whole can accomplish more (investigation, apprehension, and punishment) than any single agency.
The designation of supplier and customer is dynamic. A prosecutor’s office is a customer of police departments (takes in arrests) but supplies prisons.
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A Changing Environment
- Demographic changes:
- Children have more free, unsupervised time making them more susceptible to negative influences
- Increasing diversity in society:
- Immigration, culture conflict, workplace demands
- Technological changes
- Changes in communication, knowledge gathering and dissemination, and workplace
- Heightened demands for corporate responsibility
- Adherence to legal, ethical, professional standards
- Global environment, including law and order
- Boundaries removed
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
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Consequences of a Changing Environment
- Learning organizations: highly flexible and adaptable to changing environmental demands allowing for problem solving.
- Changes in organizational design to facilitate learning
- Move to a horizontal structure
- Limit strict adherence to rules by giving more discretion to frontline workers
- Share information throughout the organization
- Empower the workforce to work toward overall organizational improvement and adaptation
- Collaborate with customers and clients
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
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Difficulties Amid Successes
- Changing to a learning organization from a classical or traditional organization is daunting
- Some successes in the right direction
- Community policing
- Probation and parole
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
Administration and Management in Criminal Justice
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