The Concept of Bureaucracy - Case Study Example

The Concept of Bureaucracy This paper elaborates on the complications of bureaucracy using Kristen Lardner’s case and features Max Weber’s theoretical concepts that he proposed would ensure ideal bureaucracy. On 30 May 1992, Michael Cartier stalked Kristin Lardner to the Harvard Street and the Commonwealth Avenue, shooting her to death. Michael Cartier’s lifetime occupied a massive rap sheet of three pages, which included battery, assault, cruelty, robbery, brawling, arson and probation violation among others (Stillman 72). From a tender age, Cartier showed the symptoms of cruelty to animals, people and attempted sabotage of property. These symptoms characterize the conduct disorder. Cartier’s mother sent him to a treatment home for the troubled children when he was seven years old (Stillman 62). At sixteen years, Cartier’s father took care of him after receiving care in several state-supported treatment institutions. Cartier joined a dangerous gang after dropping out of school where he recorded numerous criminal charges throughout Massachusetts. His relationships with women matched his violent and deviant conduct he displayed to the society. Before Cartier dated Lardner, he had a relationship with Ryan Rose, which turned violent when it began (Stillman 65). Cartier turned mentally and physically abusive and violent to Ryan and regularly threatened her safety on many instances. After terminating their relationship, Ryan sought a restraint order against Cartier who was on probation at the time (Stillman 67). Cartier’s probation officer directed a warrant for his immediate apprehension. Cartier would serve a prison sentence of a year and three months soon after his arrest but served only six months. Cartier continued pestering Ryan while in the penitentiary and continued transgressing the restraining order. On his release, the Essex County administrators further apprehended him for a previous transgression of his probation, but they gave him a shortened sentence. The relationship between Cartier and Lardner matched that of him with Ryan. Kristin sought for protection from the police force and the criminal justice entity (Stillman 64). Kristin’s safety was under constant jeopardy brought about by poor bureaucratic decisions from multiple agencies. Such bureaucracies failed through utilizing their own standardized practice procedures. The case study for how Kristin died reveals several core decisions that bureaucracies such as public administrators and street-level bureaucrats made and that contributed to Kristin’s adversities. There were various instances of Cartier under arrest for disregarding his probation, but receiving shortened and lenient sentences. Poor communication among several county officials and bureaucracies aided Cartier to manipulate the system and avoid harsh sentences that he deserved (Stillman 71). Particularly, the failure of the Boston Court to follow Cartier’s status with the Brighton probation institution paved way for him to escape further psychological assessment. When Cartier was finally under imprisonment, the criminal justice entity decided to return him to the streets because the prisons could not house any more inmates (Stillman 67). In numerous ways, the criminal justice system, public administrators, county officials and municipal courts immensely failed in their goals and mission. The criminal justice system failed in instilling proper communication that cost Kristin her life. Various task forces involved such as the probation department and the Boston municipal court failed in linking and sharing pertinent information about Cartier that would have been just for Kristin and Ryan. The probation department would have handled the issue of abuse through creating a network with mental centers and non-profit institutions to locate and punish offenders while collaborating with the criminal justice system, which they failed in Kristin’s case. Max Weber illustrates the advance of bureaucracy as regards their technical superiority that surpasses any other type of organization (Stillman 58). Weber continues to describe bureaucracies as unified, precise and speedy. The case note regarding Kristin’s death portrays a situation in which the bureaucracy is weak, sluggish and uncoordinated. Notably, the probation department was not evading its duties, but was prospecting to accomplish them with an existent and ever-augmenting caseload. Constant communication among various probation institutions was out of a standard operating procedure because the concerned officers felt that it would cause a backlog in their caseload. Communication is pertinent for fulfillment of the goals and mission of any institution. Collaboration lessons would be of importance when instilled in the probation institutions in Suffolk County. Augmented collaboration can aid the departments to ensure safety of the public via a precise monitoring and assessment of offenders (Stillman 59). For effective public management, improvement of productivity and efficiency is pertinent. Quality management concerns self-evaluation and involves customer input, reflection and incremental changes within the entity. At the core of quality management is the importance of rapid alterations in the average operating procedures and constant training of involved parties (Stillman 61). Quality management concentrates on production, workforce participation and efficient communication to enhance all work processes. Further, with regard to Weber’s theoretical concepts of perfect bureaucracies, the key players in the criminal justice system ought to institute bi-monthly meetings. Such meetings would ensure that chief justices from major courts would discuss and enforce top-down approaches towards collaboration within the agencies. Communication at the highest level could result in rapid alterations in the typical operating procedures within the probation department. Quality management further emphasizes workforce participation and empowerment of the staff (Stillman 62). Discussing enforcement techniques may enable agency leaders to seek immense feedback from the street-level bureaucrats that ensure a correct enforcement of policy. Creating a departmental task force to collect and compile information about offenders would aid in enhancing the flow of intelligence into the department. In contemporary times, agencies experience inundation of information, but the challenge here is the enhancement of the amount of quality intelligence an institution receives. The organization structure of probation departments does not have a design to allow cross-departmental collaboration (Mallicoat and Gardiner 90). They, however, resemble silos that own their bottom-up systems of communication. Creating an independent task force would succinctly address the quandary of information breakdown. Intelligence breakdown occurs when the staff of an entity fails to receive information essential for performance of their jobs. When information breakdowns occur outside the organization, it is most likely because of insufficient external networks. A devoted task force would be immensely pertinent to foster the external network of the Suffolk County court entities and the probation department (Mallicoat and Gardiner 101). Kristin Lardner’s demise was a preventable tragedy had there been sufficient cross-departmental collaboration. The purpose of collaborative administration between probation departments would be to locate offenders that pose as a danger to themselves and other people who surround them. A competitive task force would create an administrative framework to facilitate effectual communication throughout the entire Suffolk County system of courts. Creation of informal relationships between non-profit entities that counsel abusers and probation institutions could elicit various positive benefits (Mallicoat and Gardiner 78). Such collaboration would aid in developing an external network for the entities. In the case note, Cartier visited Emerge, a non-profit counseling institution (Stillman 65). Cartier visited Emerge counseling sessions but forgot the name of his probation officer when inquired. Communication with institutions such as Emerge would enable the public to feel comfortable when calling the probation department or referring others to call the probation department. Augmented communication with such organizations would help probation institutions to know if offenders consistently attend the court-ordered sessions. Public-nonprofit collaboration would aid the probation institutions to trace past offenders that seek counseling for custom habits. In the case note, Cartier’s admission to the Boston mental center went unknown by the Boston Municipal court. The court sentenced Cartier to attend a once-a-week class at a courthouse named “Alternatives to Violence”. Tobin, the head officer, proclaimed that the session was not for cases such as Cartier, but for persons who reacted to stress in a violent fashion (Stillman 70). Cartier halted attending the classes but had a further readmission in the course. Had the Boston court known about Cartier’s dependence on Lithium to control his manic depression and hospital admission, they would not have assigned him to the course. If the probation office for the municipal court had been in constant contact with the state mental health center or if they had communicated with Brighton’s chief probation officer, they would have know much about Cartier history (Stillman 69). Any bureaucratic organization ought to go beyond its standard operating procedures and locate information required to achieve its mission (Mallicoat and Gardiner 112). Lack of communication, transparency and accountability among the probation offices, street-level bureaucrats and the municipal courts within the criminal justice system facilitated Cartier’s actions. He was able to manipulate the entire justice system and the lenient punishments he received served to embolden him. Kristin’s demise portrays a failure of the mission and goal of the criminal justice entity. With enforcement of bureaucratic changes as stipulated by Weber, however, the system would prevent such situations from happening again in the future (Mallicoat and Gardiner 134). Works Cited Stillman, Richard. Public Administration: Concepts and Cases, 9th ed.: Concepts and Cases. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2009. Print. Mallicoat, Stacy, and Gardiner, Christine. Criminal Justice Policy. Fullerton: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2013. Print. Read More