Reference no: EM131458396

Please response the the following 4 post. 150 words or more.

1. If I were put in a position to develop a program to investigate contraband and violence in prisons, my pool of applicants would be new ones. The reason for this is that if I feel corruption is going on, there has to subculture in the organization that facilitates this. I run a risk of bringing on an already corrupt correctional officer or one that may leak the information to his peers.

I will start by going through the full socialization process which start with anticipatory. At this point the applicant has shown interest from possibly two sources. They either like the status of the position and know it will impress friends and family or someone in the field seen their traits and mentioned that they were a good fit. (Stojkovic, kalinich, & Klofas, 2015, p. 261) At this phase, they are being evaluated to see if they are even worth going to the next phase which is formal.

This is where the candidate will go to a structured school and also get some on the job training and equally as important, get a "degree of indoctrination about their expected behaviors" (Stojkovic, kalinich, & Klofas, 2015, p. 262). At the beginning of the third phase which is informal, I will inform the stand out applicants of their specific task with the Internal Affairs Unit.

This is when the specific internal affairs training will happen which will be after hours away from the other officers. Training will consist of moral and ethical decision making to remind the new officers what temptations are out there. "Ethical breaches are a common occurrence" (Stojkovic, kalinich, & Klofas, 2015, p. 280)

The socialization problems that I foresee would be role conflicts where the young officer who already knows a little about his job is going back and forth between being a normal officer who sides with his peers and also handling his duty to the Internal Affairs Unit. "Compliance with one, make compliance with the other difficult." (Stojkovic, kalinich, & Klofas, 2015, p. 265)

Good morning;

2. For this program to work, the officers that will form part of the internal affairs group need to be, persons that demonstrate traits of working independently, a problem solver, someone who analysis all spectrums of a problem before coming up with a solution, someone who trust but verifies and at the same time an individual who can initiate and carry out conversations for long periods of time and can change from one topic to another, always keeping the other party interested and engaged in the subject, a natural conversational person, someone that can gain the trust of people and make them open up about anything.

Secondly, these officers need to have been socially accepted by peers and the inmate population, while at the same time adhering to the procedures and policies within the organization.

Officers who have been in the organization for some time now, where they have gone through the stages of socialization, both formal and informal with both elements of the correctional institution, inmates and peers.

This is critical for the mission to succeed since integrating a newly officer to the team could raise suspicion within the organization and jeopardize the end goal. "The informal socialization process for new guards is often marked by mistrust and often hostility from their experienced peers (Conover, 2000)" (Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D. B., & Klofas, J., 2015). A newly officer who would start to ask questions in an attempt to obtain information about contraband and/or violence will definitely raise suspicion among peers and inmates.

The structure of training needs to be based and tailored to the mission in hand "internal affairs". I believe that as an internal affair's officer the most important training and the core of the entire mission revolves around ethics. "Ethics concerns the study of right and wrong, duty, responsibility, and personal character" (Stojkovic et al., 2015).

These officer's mission will be to observed and determine if their peer's actions are right or wrong. To do so, they need to have a vast understanding of the environment in the correctional structure and operations. The task in hand is a very challenging one, to determine if actions taken by other correctional officers are right or wrong. For example, smuggling anything into the facility might be against policy and procedures, however maybe smuggling a treat (food) to reward an inmate for something he did beyond is duties as an inmate might be against procedures, but is it ethically wrong?

One of the problems I foresee is, those officers now have to make the decision to report on their fellow peers. This might affect that internal affairs officer social standing, because he might start to distance himself from those officers who committed the offenses. At the same time the rest of the peers will start to notice a change in attitude from those internal affairs officers.

Another problem I foresee is role of conflict. "Role of conflict is the occurrence of two or more role expectations in such a way that compliance with one makes compliance with another difficult or impossible" (Stojkovic et al., 2015). Because he is fulfilling two separate jobs/task one of those will normally demand more than the other, and once again, this might bring unwanted attention, which we don't want for this undercover work.

3. The types of power that criminal justice employees are likely to consider legitimate are achievement - power, which was developed by David McClelland (1965). This theory is that motivation comes from employee's high achievements and their own efforts. This comes from work on projects and assignments that are challenging. Feedback is received which further motivates the employee and the employee avoids negative situations that would lead authorities to question their achievements. Stojkovic, S. (pg. 139).

Employees may also consider socialized power a legitimate power. This power was explored by Hepburn (1985) under this power there are reasonable instructions and rules that are used for the motivation of prisoners to carry out their expected duties and behaviors. Stojkovic, S., (pg. 141) When an organization is "legitimatized" by subordinates, it gains compliance from them because employees want to do more and are more motivated.

References:

Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D., Klofas, J. (2015) Criminal Justice Organizations, Sixth Edition. (Vital Source Bookshelf Online) Stojkovic, S, Problems in the Socialization Process (pg. 268),

4. The criminal justice field has many different areas of operations. Because of this, certain organizations maintain different levels and types of power. Judges hold ultimate power in their arena while prosecutors and attorneys are only pawns. Wardens hold power in correctional facilities which is different than the power held by chiefs of police or sheriffs. In order to better understand power in organizations, I will focus solely on a local police department.

The chief of police holds the highest power within the department (of course he answers to city powers, he will be the basis of this discussion). Dating to the origin of the police services, the chief of police holds traditional authority - authority vested in the position a person holds, as that has long been the culture of the organization (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015, p. 290).

He is simply in charge, as he holds that title. Employees respect his judgements and tasks, as it is the norm to do so. But the chief of police potentially holds more than just this traditional form of power.

If the chief of police is respected amongst peers and employees alike, he maintains a charismatic authority. Employees may do as he says, because the respect him as an individual, and not just the position he holds. Further, the chief of police would not hold this title if he did not know his job. While there is certainly a role of politics in the criminal justice field, specialized knowledge and ability to do the job gives the chief of police expert power (Stojkovic, et al., p. 292).

The chief's employees will respect his orders, as he knows what his orders hold. Another form of power similar to that of charismatic authority is the legitimate power the chief holds. Junior employees respect chief's decision as veteran employees respect the chief's power.

The criminal justice system is able to function based on these "legitimized" forms of powers, as employees at the end of the day, want to work for an organization that they believe in. While subordinates may legitimize leadership powers, they do so because they do not want to fail and strive for personal and organizational gain. Further, employees that do not understand this legitimized form of power are either punished or removed.

References:

Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D., & Klofas, J. (2015). Criminal Justice Organizations Administration and Management. Stamford: Cengage Learning.