Criminal Justice Organizations Research Articles

Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Response in Correctional and Detention Facilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected persons held in and working in correctional and detention facilities, causing facilities' traditional priorities to shift when healthcare and public health needs temporarily drove many aspects of operations. During July-August 2022, we interviewed members of health departments and criminal justice organizations to document lessons learned from the COVID-19 response in correctional settings. Participants valued enhanced partnerships, flexibility, and innovation, as well as real-time data and corrections-specific public health guidance. Challenges included cross-sector collaborations, population density, scarcity of equipment and supplies, and mental health. Most participants reported improved relationships between criminal justice and public health organizations during the pandemic. Lessons from COVID-19 can be applied to everyday public health preparedness and emergency response in correctional facilities by ensuring representation of correctional health in public health strategy and practice and providing timely, data-driven, and partner-informed guidance tailored to correctional environments when public health needs arise.

성공적인 양형개혁을 위한 양형위원회의 상시 임무

Fifteen years after the sentencing guidelines system was first introduced in Korea, sentencing guidelines have been set for most major crimes and the compliance rate has proven to be high. The Korean Sentencing Commission adopted the gradual approach in designing the guidelines and has worked to enhance the objectivity of the sentencing guidelines by way of quality evaluation of the sentencing factors. It appears that at present the sentencing guidelines system has been firmly implemented into the justice system.
 However, for sentencing reform to be successful, the Sentencing Commission must be faithful to meet its perennial responsibilities. These responsibilities include but are not limited to consistently designing and revising the guidelines, more evidence-based monitoring of compliance to and the effects of the guidelines, making public and educating others about the sentencing guidelines, providing access to the disclosure of sentencing information, and establishing sound sentencing policies with an emphasis on very important issues such as pertaining to corrections.
 To that end, the Commission should operate an empirical data based sentencing guidelines system by way of collection and analysis of high quality sentencing data. Abundant and sound data will provide for a better sentencing data base and a sentencing information system which will in turn be pivotal in achieving a higher level of research and education. These tasks will perforce require cooperation between various criminal justice organizations. Unfortunately, the Korean Sentencing Commission’s on-going operations have not reached an optimal level in collecting qualified sentencing data to ensure the implementation and adherence to the guidelines nor effectively researching sentencing policies.
 Contrary to the original intent of the establishment legislation, the Sentencing Commission has operated as a mere branch under the jurisdiction of the Korean Supreme Court and has focused most of its attention to the promulgation of various individual guidelines. The Sentencing Commission must be treated as an independent and specialized entity to ensure successful implementation of its continual responsibilities. The goal of sentencing reform can only be attained by the ongoing efforts of the Commission and its willingness to work towards this common end.

The environmental and organizational determinants of county prosecutor salaries

ABSTRACT National surveys show that criminal justice organizations must devote considerable energy to recruiting qualified personnel and, in some cases, they struggle to attract sufficient applicant pools. To address these problems, organizations may use salary as a means of attracting candidates. From a contingency theory perspective, pay should be higher when the demands of the work and the nature of the organizational environment serve as detractors to successful recruitment. Using data from national surveys of prosecutor offices, this study explores the relationship between salary, the environment, and the organization. Results suggest that prosecutor pay is consistently related to county cost of living and, in different analytical models, caseload, government form, community conservatism, and rurality. The implications for theory and policy are discussed.

Organizational support for the potentially traumatic impact of video evidence of violent crime in the criminal justice system: ‘We’re almost making more victims’

As graphic video evidence becomes a standard element in the investigation and prosecution of violent crime, criminal justice organizations must consider and address exposure to and impact of this potentially traumatizing workplace material for criminal justice professionals. Using a discovery-oriented qualitative design and a long-interview method of data collection, this study explores organizational responses to the exposure of criminal justice professionals to a growing volume of video evidence of violent crime. Repeated exposure to high-quality video evidence has the effect of placing criminal justice professionals in the midst of traumatic events, resulting in responses that are akin to trauma contagion. However, organizational awareness and the acceptance of trauma and support systems have not kept pace with the exponential rise in exposure, often being deployed when the person is no longer able to continue in their role. As a result, affected individuals may over-rely on equally affected colleagues for support, intensifying the cycle of trauma contagion. Organizational responses to reduce trauma contagion and the psychological burden on professionals working with video evidence of violent crime should occur at three levels: prevention through moderating exposure; preparation through creating a culture of awareness and acceptance; and intervention through systematic and formal supports.

Just an ‘optional extra’ in the ‘victim toolkit’?: The culture, mechanisms and approaches of criminal justice organisations delivering restorative justice in England and Wales

Despite policy and guidance stating that all victims of crime should have ‘equal access’ to restorative justice in England and Wales, victim participation remains low. Here, the ways in which criminal justice agents – responsible for providing victim services, including restorative justice – offer restorative justice to victims are explored. Drawing upon empirical data collected from criminal justice organisations in two police force areas, this article outlines what factors lie behind the inconsistencies found across police forces in terms of structure and delivery of restorative justice. Work pressures, differing views of the suitability or effectiveness of restorative justice and a lack of systematic guidance that underpins the work culture of criminal justice organisations all impede victims’ access to restorative justice. This paper concludes with recommendations for embedding a culture of restorative justice within criminal justice organisations based upon the principles of inclusivity and engagement.

How Research Evidence is Defined, Acquired, and Shared Across Systems That Address Intimate Partner Violence.

This exploratory study examined the flow of research evidence through systems that address intimate partner violence (IPV), including victim services, law enforcement, and criminal justice organizations. Qualitative interviews with representatives of these disciplines assessed how respondents define, acquire, and share research evidence. Findings suggest that research evidence is defined more broadly in the field than in academic settings, and is accessed primarily from trusted intermediaries within professional networks. State IPV coalitions and victim service providers are key intermediaries across sectors. Findings suggest the need for more tangible supports to support sharing of research information within and across service sectors.

The 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic and Its Corresponding Data Boon: Issues With Pandemic-Related Data From Criminal Justice Organizations

Public organizations, including institutions in the U.S. criminal justice (CJ) system, have been rapidly releasing information pertaining to COVID-19. Even CJ institutions typically reticent to share information, like private prisons, have released vital COVID-19 information. The boon of available pandemic-related data, however, is not without problems. Unclear conceptualizations, stakeholders’ influence on data collection and release, and a lack of experience creating public dashboards on health data are just a few of the issues plaguing CJ institutions surrounding releasing COVID-19 data. In this article, we detail issues that institutions in each arm of the CJ system face when releasing pandemic-related data. We conclude with a set of recommendations for researchers seeking to use the abundance of publicly available data on the effects of the pandemic.

Youth Service Provision and Coordination among Members of a Regional Human Trafficking Task Force.

Trafficked youth have numerous needs that must be addressed to give them opportunities to rebuild their lives. Few organizations offer comprehensive services to meet all these needs, which forces survivors to seek out services from multiple organizations and puts them at risk for not receiving important services. This study highlights the needs of organizations in an interagency task force that serve trafficked youth to identify barriers and generate potential solutions to service provision challenges. We conducted a mixed-methods needs assessment by conducting interviews with 15 service providers belonging to a regional human trafficking task force, which revealed a need for more services for trafficked youth, particularly in criminal justice and gender-based violence organizations. Implications of these findings include a need for centralized referral processes and more prevention services, such as a youth drop-in center and educational interventions.

Rural Victimization and Policing during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Rural criminal justice organizations have been overlooked by researchers and underfunded in the United States, exacerbating problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Access to victims’ services has been a longstanding issue in rural communities, but has become more difficult due to stay-at-home orders and changes in daily activities. Requirements such as social distancing, necessitated by COVID-19, have increased the risk of domestic violence and rural service providers are less prepared than those in more populated areas. Rural law enforcement agencies, on the other hand, have traditionally operated with smaller budgets and staffs—conditions that have complicated the response to the unprecedented event. Many of the recommended practices for policing during a pandemic have been more applicable to larger urban and suburban departments with more resources and officers extended across many units. The strain on rural victims’ services and law enforcement has been felt only a few months into the coronavirus pandemic, while the long-term effects are not yet known.

Assessing The Evidence: How Systems That Address Intimate Partner Violence Evaluate The Credibility And Utility Of Research Findings

Despite advances in practitioner-researcher partnerships, barriers to the uptake of research evidence in practice sectors that address intimate partner violence (IPV) persist. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine how practitioners across victim services, criminal justice, and law enforcement systems assess the usefulness and credibility of research evidence to their practice and policy-related decision making. Data were derived through qualitative interviews with 37 representatives of victim services, criminal justice, and law enforcement organizations in the state of Washington. Practitioners were asked to describe the criteria and processes used to determine the credibility and usefulness of research evidence they encounter. Practitioners across systems reported that the identity and credibility of the messenger conveying the research evidence, the relevance and applicability of the research to their own practice context, and the rigor of the methods used to derive the evidence are important criteria in assessing its utility and trustworthiness. A subset of respondents reported a suspicion of the research enterprise altogether, and/or a lack of resources available to engage with research evidence. Given the centrality of the messengers of research evidence in practitioners’ assessment of its credibility, IPV systems may be well-served to more deeply invest in research to practice intermediaries who are adequately resourced to translate evidence across sectors. Additional practice and research implications are discussed.

What’s so good about participation? Politics, ethics and love in Learning Together

This article tells the story of our movement towards using participatory approaches in an action research project aiming to understand the experiences and impacts of belonging to learning communities that span prison and university walls. We draw on our experiences over the past 5 years of building learning communities involving students from higher education and criminal justice organisations and describe some of our attempts to provide creative opportunities for participation and voice within research. We highlight some of the benefits that we have seen through adopting these approaches, as well as some of the discomforts that we, and our students, have experienced. We use these examples to question for whom we think participation ‘works’, whether participation is always good, or whether it can, rather, sometimes cause harm, and the extent to which participation addresses some of the ethical concerns levelled at more traditional approaches to social science research, including matters of power, purpose, positioning and personhood. Using the work of Cantillon and Lynch as an orienting framework, in the conclusions we return to their arguments to suggest that the benefits of participatory action research might not be in alleviating these ethical concerns, but rather in establishing affective links between people occupying different roles within research, thus imbuing the process with love. This has the potential to transform all of the actors, and the research itself.

‘Giving back and getting on with my life’: Peer mentoring, desistance and recovery of ex-offenders

Peer work and peer mentoring are dynamic social processes that have reciprocal benefits for both mentor and mentee in tackling issues around reoffending and substance misuse. Narratives of peer mentors and desistance were collected from probation peer mentors, Criminal Justice Drugs Team mentors and health trainers, to explore identity transformation and how the criminal justice system supports ex-offenders in desistance. Criminal justice practitioners were also interviewed to explore the importance of relational support networks. Themes that emerged from the research include the transformative potential of peer work and how peer workers can become role models for other offenders. Peer workers are ‘experts by experience’, using personal narratives of desistance to inspire hope in others. Influential criminal justice personnel are key to this process. Peer work can be the start of building a desisting identity, acting as a ‘hook for change’. Peer workers are given spaces within criminal justice organisations to work, which fosters a sense of purpose, belonging, trust and responsibility. Seeing ex-offenders from a strengths-based perspective is integral to supporting ex-offender transition. However, peer workers are inconsistently validated by criminal justice personnel, which can impede their desistance, placing them in a liminal position.

Environmental Influences on Sheriff Perceptions and Strategies

Scholars generally agree that law enforcement organizations are influenced by the environment. While most research on criminal justice organizations has focused on municipal law enforcement agencies, sheriff agencies are distinct from municipal police agencies for a variety of reasons. As such, sheriff agencies may be uniquely impacted by environmental pressures. In the current study, electronic surveys were sent to sheriffs in 9 states to assess their concern about juvenile trafficking, their perception of environmental groups’ concern, and the agency’s response to juvenile trafficking. Results suggested a complex relationship between environmental groups, respondent perceptions, and agency response. Most notably, sheriffs seemed to view themselves as most in sync with local groups, especially the community. Additionally, rural agencies did seem to be influenced differently by environmental groups than urban and suburban agencies. Future research should study rural agencies and also seek to more deeply understand the complex relationships between the environment and sheriffs.

Prevalence of Gambling Disorder Among Prisoners: A Systematic Review.

This article presents the first systematic review of studies on the prevalence of gambling disorder among prisoners across international jurisdictions. Only original studies that were published in English and employed reliable and valid screening tools are included in this analysis. The review finds that rates of problem or pathological gambling in prison populations are highly variable, ranging from 5.9% to 73% of male and female inmates surveyed. Nevertheless, recorded rates of problem and pathological gambling among inmates are consistently and significantly higher than rates of problem and pathological gambling recorded among the general population. The review indicates that the institution of problem gambling treatment programmes in carceral settings is necessary, to aid community re-entry and reduce the likelihood of re-offending. Moreover, it is suggested that the screening of inmates should become standard practice across penal institutions and other criminal justice organisations, with a view to better addressing the needs of offenders.

Institutional Ethnography as a Method of Inquiry for Criminal Justice and Socio-Legal Studies

Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry created by Canadian feminist sociologist Dorothy E. Smith to examine how sequences of texts coordinate forms of organisation. Here we explain how to use IE, and why scholars in criminal justice and socio-legal studies should use it in their research. We focus on IE’s analysis of texts and intertextual hierarchy, as well as Smith’s understanding of mapping as a methodological technique; the latter entails explaining how IE’s approach to mapping differs from other social science approaches. We also argue that IE’s terms and techniques can help examine the textual work undertaken in criminal justice and legal organisations, and reveal how people are governed and ruled by these organisational processes. In the discussion, we summarise how IE can productively contribute to criminal justice and socio-legal studies in the twenty-first century.

Police organizational failure and decoupling: Identifying precursors to failure through the rampart commission

In criminal justice organizations, organizational failure can have catastrophic, often tragic, repercussions. Through the theoretical framework of coupling, this work studies a past organizational failure, the Rampart incident in Los Angeles, and determine what organizational characteristics led to the failure. Using case study analysis, this article investigates circumstances leading to organizational dysfunction, the categories of failure are coded and analyzed to determine precursors to organizational failure. Ultimately, this article shows that police organizational failure is not simply the case of misconduct or deviance, but rather a natural occurrence that can be precipitated by organizational precursors. From these precursors, it should be possible to develop a template which could identify organizations at risk for failure.

Institutional Ethnography as a Method of Inquiry for Criminal Justice and Socio-Legal Studies

Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry created by Canadian feminist sociologist Dorothy E. Smith to examine how sequences of texts coordinate forms of organisation. Here we explain how to use IE, and why scholars in criminal justice and socio-legal studies should use it in their research. We focus on IE’s analysis of texts and intertextual hierarchy, as well as Smith’s understanding of mapping as a methodological technique; the latter entails explaining how IE’s approach to mapping differs from other social science approaches. We also argue that IE’s terms and techniques can help examine the textual work undertaken in criminal justice and legal organisations, and reveal how people are governed and ruled by these organisational processes. In the discussion, we summarise how IE can productively contribute to criminal justice and socio-legal studies in the twenty-first century.

Attitudes Toward Punishment, Organizational Commitment, and Cynicism: A Multilevel Analysis of Staff Responses in a Juvenile Justice Agency

Staff commitment to agency goals is important in juvenile justice settings, where the mission oscillates between the often-competing goals of rehabilitating youth and punishing them. Although prior research considers how staff characteristics relate to commitment to, and/or cynicism about, criminal justice organizations, less work examines these relationships in juvenile justice settings, and even less examines the effects of staff attitudes toward punishment. The current study assesses the influence of rehabilitative and punitive attitudes on organizational commitment and cynicism in a juvenile justice agency ( n = 204). Multilevel analyses evaluating staff members within organizational units reveal that staff holding more traditional (punitive) attitudes are significantly and positively associated with cynicism, whereas staff holding rehabilitative values demonstrate greater commitment to the agency. Findings suggest attitudes toward punishment play an important role in staff commitment to, and cynicism about, justice organizations, which may affect workers’ adherence to organizational policies and goals.

Sentencing and the iron cage: judges’ experiences with rationalization

ABSTRACTJudicial decision-making has significant consequences for individuals, families, local communities, and social institutions. Mandatory sentencing guidelines were originally created to control disparity in the sentencing process. After years of implementation, they further embedded rationalization in the system, which has formalized complex processes leading to mass incarceration. However, recent court cases have made guidelines advisory rather than mandatory in some states. The purpose of this study is to examine Michigan judges’ experiences with sentencing guidelines one year after shifting from mandatory to advisory guidelines, and to examine how guidelines constrain and enable discretion in judicial decision-making. It draws upon theories of the rationalization of criminal justice organizations and past research on criminal courts. Our results show (1) guidelines serve as an influential ‘starting point,’ and frame sentencing decisions, (2) formal and substantive rationality both continue to influence sentencing, and (3) judges perceive the shift to advisory guidelines will only have minimal effects on sentencing patterns across the state.

Special Issue: Women at Work in Criminal Justice Organizations

Special Issue: Women at Work in Criminal Justice Organizations