Chapter Three – The Criminal Justice System in its Environment

Understand the influence the environment has on criminal justice agencies.

Be able to discuss the major environmental influences on criminal justice agencies.

Understand the political environment of the criminal justice system.

Be able to explain environmental uncertainty vs. certainty. Understand how environmental forces can de-couple large

organizations. Understand the process of scanning the environment. Understand how agency executives manage environmental

inputs with symbolism.

An organization’s environment is any external phenomenon, event, group, individual, or system.

Environmental change causes organizational change.

The relationship between an organization and its environment is interdependent.o The organization is affected by its environment,

ando The environment is affected by the

organization.

Technologyo Transportation and communication changes

affect how criminal justice agencies do their jobs.

o Creates completely new forms of criminality. Law

o Statutory laws like ‘three strikes’ and the USA PATRIOT ACT profoundly change criminal justice agencies.

o Court rulings affect criminal procedures.o Civil litigation influences agency behavior.

Economic conditionso Influence the availability of resources.o Unemployment may increase criminality.

Demographic factorso Large proportions of crime prone (young)

citizens increase overall crime rates.oMovement of working class and wealthy

individuals from communities reduces available resources.

o Immigration (legal and illegal) creates new challenges in justice administration.

Cultural conditionso Dramatic changes in culture may result in new or

different laws.o Competing cultures may cause social conflict.

Ecological conditionso Different ecological needs (e.g. agrarian, industrial,

service, etc.) create their own challenges for criminal justice.

o Conflict over scarce resources affects criminal justice agencies.

o Increased awareness of ecological issues may result in additional responsibilities for criminal justice.

Political conditionsoAgencies are affected by political

pressure from advocacy, interest, and constituent groups.

oElected criminal justice actors are highly influenced by political conditions.

oChanging social and cultural norms eventually influence result in political change.

A complex decision-making apparatus containing both formal and informal overlapping subsystems (Fairchild and Webb, 1995).o Formal• Legislative bodies, city councils, etc.• Courts

o Informal• Pressure from political activists and advocates• Informal pressure from the formal system

The forces in the environment that are related directly to the goal-setting and goal-directed activities of the criminal justice system (Steers, 1977). Six categories (Lauffer, 1984).o Beneficiarieso Funders o Providers of non-fiscal resources o Providers of complimentary serviceso Competitors o Legitimizers

Organizations are affected by the state of their environment.o Simple versus Complex• Simple – homogeneous environments with few

elements • Complex – heterogeneous environments with many

elements

o Static versus Dynamic• Static – predictable environments• Dynamic – unpredictable environments

The more dynamic and complex the environment the greater the uncertainty.o Environmental uncertainty• Lack of information needed for decision making• Inability to estimate effect prior to implementation• Lack of information about the cost of a bad decision

oDecoupled organizations – multiple sub-environmentsoDominant coalition – leadersoWork processors – do the actual work

All organizations are vulnerable to environmental forces, but these can be managed.o Influencing input by providing expertise to

environmental factorso Using symbols and rhetoric to influence the

environmental responseo Responding to client demando Decreasing vulnerability to pressure by creating

autonomy

The role of management is to mitigate the effect of environmental pressure and create predictability.

Administrators should be highly protective of the organizations core technologies and competencies.

Constant scanning of the environment is necessary for a proactive response to and/or the protection against environmentally caused change.

There is interdependence between the criminal justice system and its environment.

Changes in the environment require criminal justice agencies to adapt.

New technology changes social structures, organizational opportunities, and crime patterns to which agencies need to adapt.

Statutory and civil laws directly alter mandates and constraints on the system.

Economic conditions affect agency budgets, scarcity in staff selection, and also may affect crime patterns and rates.

Demographic shifts affect local budges and demands for service.

Changes in culture require agencies to adapt to citizens with new demands for services and justice outcomes.

Changing climate patterns, community size, and economic base have far ranging effects on economic and cultural conditions that, in turn, affect agencies.

Political conditions faced by agencies have the most direct impact on agency mandates and constraints.

The political environment is a complex process of formal and informal political subsystems.

Changing environmental forces require the criminal justice agency to either make constant changes or to operate with outdated missions, policies and procedures.

Agency field workers and executives work with different environmental forces and expectations.

Agency field workers and executives have different understandings of the agency’s mandate and appropriate activities of its members.

Scanning means observing the environment for potential change and adapting the organization to respond to it.

Agencies put forward the least costly change to meet the demands from the environment. These are often symbolic.

In an effort to increase employment, the Plantersville City Council successfully convinced a large corporation to locate a call center within its municipal boundaries.

This call center employs 1,000 low wage employees.

Almost immediately it became apparent that this influx of low wage employees created numerous challenges (crime, transportation, population density, etc.) for the local police department.

Now the Mayor is trying to convince a meat packing plant to locate near the city.

This plant will likely hire a large number of low wage and unskilled labor employees.

As the Chief of Police, how would you use your experience with the call center to mitigate the potential environmental change that would likely result from the new meat packing facility?