Community- Based Practitioners - Policymakers
Community-based corrections have experienced significant growth in the last few years. The correction has grown unabated since 1980, and the growth has significant implications for the correction agencies on matters on how to make decisions related to caseload and workload issues. The caseload implies to the number of the offender that an officer supervises, and the workload is how long a task is required to be completed. Ironically, the size of the caseload will grow as the population of offender increases; however, workload will rather experience no change as each officer will only have so many working hours of duty.
Issues related to workload are complicated further by additional trends in community-based correction system. Community-based correction was once a place for minor offenders that pose little threat to the safety of the public and who in need of pre-social steering (Petersilia, 1998). However, in an attempt to alleviate crowding in jails and prisons, the correction caseload is being populated with offenders that pose a serious threat to the community. The roles of community-based correction have increasingly become mirror to the prison population. Most of the offenders are crime-minded, and they require more office time for their supervision, condition enforcement and behavior change that is adequate.
[...] There is no organizational culture in the community-based correction segment. The practitioners have realized the need to address issues related to internal organizational culture to attract and retain qualified employees. Absence of a workplace where people can flourish and collaborate to achieve the missions of the agency, there will be a further stretch of the scarce resources, recruitment problems and continued turnover. Without a clear understanding of internal culture, many problems in an organization may inaccurately be blamed on uncompetitive compensation, poor communication, and lack of teamwork, high caseloads, workforce diversity, or generational differences. [...]
[...] NY: Oxford University Press. Petersilia, J. (1998). Probation in the United States. Perspectives, Summer. Pozzi, R.A. (1999). The leadership void in community corrections. Corrections Management Quarterly three 56–59. [...]
[...] Recommendation for Community-Based Correction Practitioners Community-based corrections have experienced significant growth in the last few years. The correction has grown unabated since 1980, and the growth has significant implications for the correction agencies on matters on how to make decisions related to caseload and workload issues. The caseload implies to the number of the offender that an officer supervises, and the workload is how long a task is required to be completed. Ironically, the size of the caseload will grow as the population of offender increases; however, workload will rather experience no change as each officer will only have so many working hours of duty. [...]
[...] This recommendation does present a way forward, but it is not a final step to resolving workload decision making problems as a community continue to experience the escalating caseloads and court-ordered conditions. This study is seen as an initial step towards a better understanding of the views of the practitioners towards allocation of workloads. Agencies with stakeholders' guidance in this jurisdiction are advised to establish defined organizational goals and maximum strategies to enable them achieve, evaluate, as well as adjusting the strategies. [...]
[...] Rather, it is recognized that community-based correction outcomes are implanted in the wide organizational justice system, which includes law enforcement and institutional corrections, as well as agencies out of the justice system, which include victims of crime and treatment providers. The recommendations above if put into practice will move the community- based correction practitioners and stakeholders closer to realizing the workload standards. Community-based correction institutions rely much on the various branches of justice systems, and thus greater communication is required between the policy stakeholders and the community-based correction agencies. Bibliography Lucken, K. (1997). The dynamics of penal reform. Crime, Law and Social Change, 26: 367-384 Petersilia, J. (2003). When prisoners comeback home: Parole and state prisoner re-entry. [...]
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