Systems of administration in criminal justice organizations - Essay Example

The use of open and closed systems of administration in criminal justice organizations Instructions: This question requires a discussion of the use of open and closed systems of administration within the Criminal Justice organisations. These systems would include organisations like the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation),the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and the Police Departments. In organizational theory, a closed system is a system which attempts to keep its structure and its policies even when they do not fit the surrounding environment. Any firm for that matter is in danger of becoming a closed system when it closes itself to new information.An open system under organizational philosophy is flexible, open to new information and able to interact with the environment, moreover which is part of the environment. Applying these theories to the modern Criminal Justice administration any organisation whether based on Criminal Justice or any other Department requires the use of Open and Closed systems for its effective functions. The organisation of Criminal Justice is in a constant state of flux due to changes in the outside environment, societal attitudes, mandates, legal decisions and other uncontrollable variables.(Sarat.A.1980) In this regard if we look at the Police Systems and other Law enforcement Organisations there is large influence of extraneous factors. There was an era with in the police history of Political appointments with in the traditional Police systems(pre 1900) when the city politicians wanted political control over the Police Stations .In this sense Police Stations were historically open systems in an administrative sense because they were openly controlled by politicians. This system was criticised because this so called "political era" of policing was a time of high level corruption and bribery and undue influence of the extraneous factors .A rather reformed period of administration began at the turn of thee 20th century when there was an organizational attempt by these departments at professionalising and organising the police departments and to isolate themselves from political influence and corruption. By necessity such a step required a closed system which would isolate them organizationally from the public. The organizational and administrational set ups of the Police departments adopted a more bureaucratic colour and their structure became very rigid and organised. There was less Individual discretion and separate rules and regulations for the institutional reform and management. This closed system required a certain "detachment" from the community which was not necessarily very ideal but indispensable to the pending reform. Things changed however after this reform era of the 1940's and the 1950's ,due to civil unrest so characteristic of the 1960's.A more open system where the public would be taken in trust and confidence was seen as a means promoting better crime management. The 1970's therefore saw a more open system i.e. a form of community policing.(Falcon, 2002) It can be seen therefore that the American criminal justice has experienced a transformation of organizational approach that transformed it from a closed set up and made it significantly more community interactive. Community interactivity has become a critical component in the ongoing struggle to balance the extremely uneven presence of perpetrators to law enforcement officers. The advantage of a closed-system approach was seen as the most appropriate way to protect society against criminal infiltrators by keeping information and management hidden from the public eye.However law enforcement officials realised that there was a kind of a "beneficial impact" by involving the community members by means of the open-system approach .The arrangement was practical and economically sound. The closed system ideology is still predominant across many parts of the US and also figures prominently in the mechanisms of the FBI and DEA today.(Hodgson 2001) What has to be seen is whether the closed system approach actually presents some benefits in the administration of justiceIn this analysis it is worth looking at the cases of the FBI and the DEA which are traditionally closed systems of the criminal justice hierarchy. Examples of closed systems: The FBI and the DEA The FBI has been criticised over the recent years for its intense organizational conflict with in and without. It's organizational system is a rather good example of a closed system and this has become more tight ever since it has overtaken a greater statutory role following the war on terrorism. Its closed system policies have led to much public criticism amidst allegations of its involvement with the so called terrorist organizations or "operational" mishaps. Taking the example of the police organisation in the early 1900's FBI has a lot of political influences on it and very little interaction with the public.It has often been abused as a instrument of the executive in exploiting and blackmailing opposition leaders in scandals such as the Watergate Scandal. Organizationally closed systems are often criticized for their "mysterious" activities and academics have often pointed out that the administration systems of law enforcement institutions should imperatively become more transparent. For example in the 1990s, it was leaked that the fingerprint unit of the FBI's crime lab had done scandalous and non-transparent investigations with the lab technicians using their own biases and discretion to implicate innocent suspects in criminal investigations. Although the public knowledge of the scandals reopened the case later on , the damage had been done to the reputation of the organisation solely due to its "closed" policy. There has been a history of other miscarriages of justice in connection with the same problem. In 1965 the FBI was charged with allowing the conviction of innocent suspects (three of which were on death sentence and the third spent three decades in prison).Although this scandal was finally put to rest in July, 2007 ,the institution was found guilty of this crime and ordered to pay $100 million in damages to the wrongfully accused men and their families. The DEA being another example of a closed system in the criminal justice administration has also come across scathing criticism for placing highly restrictive schedules on certain drugs which have immense medicinal values and can actually help medical science for the better. Again there are allegations of political agendas behind its administrative decisions (for example the US government's War on Drugs) .The DEA has also been accused of shady motives in concentrating on drug crack down missions only where it has a chance of seizing large amounts of money. Is all hope lost for the "Closed Systems" Before I move on to my own criticism of these closed systems in the administration of justice and discuss any possible reforms, it is worthy to point out that these systems are "closed" for many reasons. Whereas the average small police station in a small community can afford an open system in its organisation, the task of the FBI and the DEA is more complex and they have security agendas making it imperative for them to keep a low public profile. They cannot afford transparent policy making at many times mainly because of the public and national security risks involved .There is much to be said in the defense of these closed systems. Despite their much criticized presence it would be very difficult to maintain peace and order "behind the scenes". These agencies crackdown on drug mafias and criminal gangs in ways that the Police Department are unable to do so. They act as the eyes and ears of the administration of criminal justice and their roles cannot be down played. However in the wake of recent scandals and the interests of fairness it is about time that these organizational systems are made more transparent without losing their anonymity. Coming to the issue of reform within the open/closed system dichotomy of the criminal justice administration it is worth looking at the opinion of academics who have often stressed that "the small-town municipal-level police department can serve as a distinctive model within the mosaic of US policing"(Falcone 2002). According to Falcone(2002) the success of the "low-tech, non militarized, open systems model, the small-town police department stands in stark contrast to its urban counterpart." The reason for its success is that it is "organizationally receptive to the demands and requirements of community-oriented policing". The small-town police department's absence of "professionalism" and militarism which is so characteristic of the FBI, DEA and the other so called high profile closed systems is the key to its community connectedness, the foundation of its efficacy.(Falcone 2002). Furthermore Hodgson 2001,has pointed out that "in contemporary law enforcement institutions, in Canadian and US cities", are suffering from service limitations and public conflicts that are "increasingly being generated into violent encounters by the failure to move beyond the authoritarian organizational operational model"(Hodgson 2001). According to Hodgson the capacity of public policing institutions to provide effective, non-violent police services to meet the needs of the communities is determined by the nature of the police institutional and/or organizational model employed. This means that the administration system of criminal justice requires appropriate current police training models, race relations training and non-violent conflict resolution training. There is a growing need for a much needed systemic and policy reformation by considering a more "expanded understanding of this prominent social agency, the actors and the interconnectedness with other institutions".(Hodgson 2001) Coming back to the organizational philosophy behind criminal justice agencies these agencies are organized sequentially - "output" from one agency is "input" to the next (Bernard.J 2005).However in the view of many academics criminal justice is not exactly a system in a theoretical sense. Barnard.J 2005 has argued that the " general systems theory (GST) reveals important insights into criminal justice structures and functions". This is because the "criminal justice system processes "cases" rather than people, and that the common goal of criminal justice processing is to "close cases so that they stay closed." Such an attitude is predominantly apparent in criminal administration organisations where there is a closed or a less transparent system and the organisation is in danger of becoming a victim of its past successes. Justice is often hasted in closed systems and the evidence is often manipulated because of the secrecy involved. (Falcone 2002,Hodgeson 2001) Last but not the least is the conclusion that the use a closed system is indispensable to any organizational structure whether it is based inside the criminal justice administration or any other organisation for that matter. Criminal Justice carries within its aura all kinds of Political baggage and security agendas. Truly as reviewed above the closed system policy has caused miscarriages of justice very often but matters of high level national security are better contained within the closed structures of the FBI and the DEA. Much as we would like to set free our imaginations that the FBI is handling and interacting with aliens and the DEA will never let the public enjoy the "benefits" of marijuana, the work of these agencies and institutions is incredibly tumultuous. An open system would be distracting to them to say the very least. However one cannot downplay the importance of open and transparent systems with in the Criminal Organisations. Therefore the attempts of the Police forces to open themselves up to "community policing" and greater public co-operation have worked miracles for the effective administration of justice at lower costs.(Falcon 2002). A more balanced view would be that on the grass roots level the open systems are running very well but at the higher level of justice administration there is too much background noise coming from political and social agendas to allow the open systems to work efficiently. Therefore there is not much comparison that can be made within the merits of these two kinds of systems. Finally it can be said that even though the Police and the FBI(and other similar organisations) are the parts of the same family of Criminal Justice Administration there is unlikely to be any similarity within their organizational philosophies or management strategies because of the different nature of the tasks that they are involved in. Bibliography 1. John L. Worrall, Jihong Zhao,Policing ,2003 The role of the COPS Office in community policing,An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management. 2. 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