Project description
For more than 30 years, the court system has been plagued by increasing numbers of criminal defendants who are involved with illegal narcotics or have mental-health

issues or both. Some states have attempted to meet this challenge by establishing special drug courts and mental-health courts of various types. Some involve entirely

separate courts with specially-trained judges who coordinate the outcome of cases with appropriate service agencies. Others only provide a separate calendar of drug or

mental-health cases on a particular day. The Chief Judge has asked your team to investigate these possibilities for the State of Mind.

What process would you employ? What resistance would you expect to encounter, and how would you attempt to overcome it? What research would you do determine whether

such programs are viable in your state?

Address these questions in a paper of 3-5 pages. Document your sources in MLA style.

Required Course Materials
clerk in bookstore

Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D. & Klofas, J., Criminal Justice Organizations: Administration and Management, 5th Edition, 2012, Wadsworth.

Welsh, W. & Harris, P., Criminal Justice Policy and Planning, 4th Edition, 2013, Anderson

Must use these sources€¦ ^^^^^^^^^^^

Content Guide: Change and Innovation
Effective Change

Elijah Corum talks about prison life in his living quarters at
Lansing Correctional Facility in Lansing, Kan., Friday, Aug. 3, 2007.
Corum, behind bars because his probation for a drug charge was
revoked, is representative of the type of offender targeted by a
new program aimed at keeping convicts from violating probation
and ending up in prison. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Change also affects criminal justice organizations, and in unique ways. Operating in typically crises-driven environments, it can be especially challenging for

Criminal Justice administrators to adapt to societal changes. The Stojkovic text (part 4) focuses on decision-making, organizational effectiveness, change, innovation,

and research in criminal justice organizations. The concepts are applied to real-life issues such as bail decision-making, rational sentencing, a probation officer’s

view of effectiveness, a police chiefs experience with setting policies/procedures, and the application of technology to police patrol allocation.

What is effective? Congruence between goals and outcome is the textbook answer. However, as you read you will begin to see the complexity of this definition. Reduced

recidivism, safety, freedom from government intervention, cost reduction, staff maintenance and on and on go the goals of criminal justice organizations and their

stakeholders.

Organizational survival, while very real in the private sector is less of a measure of effectiveness in the government sector.

Welsh and Harris complete the procedure for planned change within a criminal justice organization by implementing the program or policy. Stojkovic comes full circle

and discusses resistance and unintended results of change. Again, it is arguable that criminal justice agencies are forced to change on the fly, thus reducing the

ability to strategically analyze unintended consequences.

For example, in response to reform, correctional organizations instituted treatment programs for chemically addicted offenders. As plans and policies developed and

results appeared favorable, many organizations found benefit in hiring ex-offenders or civilian personnel who were themselves in recovery. The decision was based upon

the professionals’ ability to relate to others suffering from addiction. Furthermore, many of the recovering professionals programmed under a faith-based treatment (or

programs that recognize a higher power) and were able to deliver similar treatment programs effectively in prison. Recently however, courts have ruled that faith-

based programs constitute an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion.

Now the treatment personnel (many dedicated to what they believe was a program that saved their lives) must dispose of the 12-step or other faith-based program and

treat the addicted offenders with modular and secular programs.

Luckily, many correctional institutions began planning at the first sign of litigation. Since most correctional agencies are top down in structure, it would not be

difficult to believe that the planning may have resulted in simply changing the curriculum used by the treatment professionals. It is also expected that these changes

were met with resistance, within both the formal and informal structure.

Change and innovation ^^^
This essay is for a criminal justice management and policy class please use that frame of mind when writing it.