Structure of Criminal Justice
The formal structure of any criminal justice organization is the officially prescribed distribution of authority and task responsibility among its offices and officials. The authority of officials to decide, to act, or to delegate responsibility is prescribed in the structure, and there is often some further specification of the conditions or bases for action. Command and intelligence gathering structures specifying how new policies and procedures are to be communicated from the top to the bottom of the bureau, or laterally. The most readily identifiable characteristics of the traditional approach to organizational structure are the idea that there exists an ideal structure to which all organizations should conform to be maximally effective. Specialization of function enhances the efficiency of bureau operations. It enables officials to become highly proficient in a relatively narrow professional task, and it generally allows workers to become more productive since organizing complex work into simple repetitive tasks increases the speed of production. Specialization, and the stability it brings is a mixed blessing to public bureau, as many have noted. We want and need this degree of predictability in a law-enforcing institut
clientele or greater specialization in regulation: yet they complain about the amount of money spent on administration. Key elements of the new organizational systems are that their structures emphasize a network rather than a hierarchy of authority and command relations, with open, lateral, upward communications based on consultation, not just downward commands. Furthermore, tasks and workflow are flexible and subject to continual redefinition on the basis of new information. Expertise, regardless of rank, is openly acknowledged and used jurisdictional disputes and rivalries are subordinated to open professional commitments. Members are loyal to their work and their professional ion, but we regret the rigidity that is the seemingly inevitable side effects. Although specialization brings expertise, it may also lead to a kind of unwillingness or inability to see alternative solutions to, or divergent points of view about, what a program should mean or how it could be implemented.
Some common words found in the essay are:
, organizational structures, organizational structure, differentiation integration, criminal justice, command communication, traditional approach, offices officials, design approach, approach organizational, centralization decentralization,
Approximate Word count = 1426
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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