Similarities Between Police Courts And Corrections

Police, courts, and corrections each have a similar common goal in administering justice. The criminal justice goal no matter the area is to uphold the law and take criminal offenders off the streets to keep the public safe.
The first component discussed in this essay is police administration of justice. Peak states, “Some of the most important and challenging positions in our society are those of a police administrator, manager, or supervisor (2016). Police officers are the root of taking criminals off the streets to keep the community safe. Police administration roles are important in making sure that their subordinates are doing it lawfully. Peak discusses three roles the chief executive officer must fulfill.
First discussed in Peak’s
text is the chief executive officer’s interpersonal role. The chief executive officer must be a public figure whom attends many of the community events, such as college graduations (Peak, 2016). Being a positive public figure for the community is dire in earning the citizens whom the chief executive officer must protect. Along the same lines of being a public figure, the chief executive officers should also be a leader. The chief executive officer must be able to enact laws that will better protect the community (Peak, 2016). The last element of the interpersonal role is acting as a liaison when meeting with other community groups or organizations. The liaison role must be one who can effectively communicate with others in an organized and thoughtful manner.

The next role discussed is the chief executive officer’s informational role. An important aspect of the informational role is for the chief executive officer is to check and make sure the department’s systems are running as well as they can (Peak, 2016). In order to check and make sure everything is going as planned the chief executive officer needs to communicate efficiently with their subordinates. Another subcategory of the informational role is working with all media departments, such as television and the radio. This can be tricky for administrators to give the media limited information that will not compromise an investigation. Administrators also need to know how to handle case leaks in a timely and affective manner.
Lastly, Peak describes the decision-maker role as a chief executive officer (2016). The decision-maker role needs to be able to promote ideas to the department that may not be popular. In this role, it is a necessity to be able to handle minor and major disputes within the department, but also throughout the community. An example Peak describes in the text is “friction between different units” (2016). Although this example is given for police departments, it can happen in any department throughout the criminal justice system.
Along with making decisions and promoting them to their department, it is essential that the chief executive officer understand the departments’ budget. This means that the chief executive officer will be required to handle requests stemming from throughout the department as well as handling citizens’ complaints. When handling such requests, the chief executive officer will have to emphasize the requests that are more important as well as be able to justify their preferences (Peak, 2016).
In addition to roles police administrators must fill, there are also four types of administrators. A traditional administrator is the first type described in the text (Peak, 2016). The traditional administrator is explained as needing to control their employees as their main role as an administrator (Peak, 2016). As with control, the traditional administrator focuses more on the negative events rather than the positive events. Conversely, the innovative administrator is more focused on community policing (Peak, 2016). The innovative administrator builds relations with their employees rather than control them like the traditional administrator would.
The supportive administrator tries to build a relationship with their employee’s same way that innovative administrators do. However, the supportive administrator is more focused on managing their employees with fair and just practices. Lastly, the active administrator tends to work out in the field by being in charge of situations rather than supervising them (Peak, 2016). Peak states in the text that the active administrators are viewed as “hardworking” by their employees, however by taking charge of situations in the field, they limit their employees room to grow in the department (2016). The next component to be discussed in courts administration of justice.
The role of a court administrator is not clearly defined. Peak states in the textbook that the court administrator may be viewed “as the day-to-day and long range activities of those persons who are responsible for the activities and functions of the court system (2016). There are three types of administration roles for judges as described in the text. The first is jurisdiction throughout the state in which they preside. One of the many roles as a state wide administrator is to assign cases to judges. Another requirement is to budget for the courts as well as setting up meetings to meet with judges (Peak, 2016). The next judge administration role is local jurisdiction, meaning they control their individual courts (Peak, 2016). Lastly, the chief judge’s responsibility is to supervise multiple courts in a
district.

Court administrators have been a growing career with courts opening the position to help with management problems (Peak, 2016). One of the functions court administrators perform is to type and distribute annual reports of the courts events. Another role court administrators fill is to serve non-judicial personnel as well as find ways to better improve the courts system (Peak, 2016). Court administrators may be in charge of following the courts budget as well as replacing lost or damaged furniture or equipment in the courts. Lastly, the court administrators may “provide training for non-judicial personnel” (Peak, 2016). The roles court administrators fill are tedious and are highly important for the courts to operate smoothly.
In addition to court administrators, jury administration have an important role to help the courts run smoothly.
Jury administrators are responsible for selecting juries for cases as well as making sure the jurists are content throughout the trial. As for selecting a jury, the jury administrator makes a “master jury list” from a vast array of jurors (Peak, 2016). As for juror comfort, the courts established a line the jurors can call to see if their presence is needed. Lastly, if there is a notorious case, involving a person of high interest, the courts including the jury administrators will have to effectively handle the
media. Last to be discussed in correctional administration of justice. A warden’s job, is sometimes viewed as the most strenuous when dealing with corrections. Wardens are responsible for all inmate and staff safety, activities in the prison, as well as budgeting for the prison (Peak, 2016). The prison population increase has led to an increase in the need for efficient wardens to run the prison adequately. Wardens must effectively manage overcrowded prisons and any problems that may arise due to the overpopulation.

Another role of prison administrators is to manage death penalties. The prison administrators must hire extremely well trained teams to carry out the death penalty process to limit the amount of mistakes that could happen.
On the same lines of having trained death penalty teams, prison administrators must also hire correctional officers with good character. Police officers must take the offenders off the streets to keep the community safe, but the correctional officers must make sure that the prisons are safe for inmates as well as staff. Like any field, prison administrators will need to effectively deal with employees who do not follow rules. Peak discusses four activities from Sam Souryal that prison administrators can use. The first is to have a tedious hiring process to make sure the applicants with the best character are being selected (Peak, 2016). The second is that the entry-level correctional officers must have supervisors that know how to handle negative situations, such as correctional staff breaking serious rules, without being told what to do. Third, administrators must be stringent with their finances and have regular audit checks (Peak, 2016). Lastly, the prison administrators must effectively train their employees with crucial ethical training.
In comparison with ethical training, prison administrators must train their staff to have appropriate relationships with the inmates. Without this essential training, there may be skewed lines when it comes to inappropriate relationships. An example of a non-sexual inappropriate relationship would be a staff member bringing an inmate a cellphone. These types of behaviors need to have adequate consequences put in place by administrators.
Along the same lines as prison administration roles, jail administrators have some of the same duties. As with prison administration, jail administrators must be a leader within their system. Jail administrators must protect the safety of the offenders as well as their staff. Employees who work in the jails need to go through training to make sure they are doing their jobs correctly.
A major aspect of being a prison or jail administrator is dealing with high burnout rates. High burnout rates can be caused by working long shifts and picking up extra hours due to short staffing. Peak discusses that when staff from different generations work together, their job satisfaction is motivated in different ways (2016). Such motivators may be paid day offs or even reducing the paperwork an employee must fill out (Peak, 2016).
Each component of the criminal justice system have their own way to effectively administer their departments. The court administration does the best at meeting their goals to operate their system in the smoothest way possible. Every component of the criminal justice system has pros and cons to the ways they manage their staff.