Importance of Criminal Justice Administration

Class: Criminal Justice Administration Date: 9/10/2012 Importance of Criminal Justice Administration The role of a Criminal Justice Administrator is to manage a criminal justice system. She/ He direct the administration of the day-to-day operations, participates in administrative decision making, enforce policies and procedures, and sets work flow priorities. Criminal justice administrators also oversee agencies’ budget, policies and program requirements. Each public agency, according to its primary function, has a support team.

The criminal justice administrator is in charge of supervising all agency staff; which can include lawyers, judicial clerks, secretaries, investigators and line officers. He/ She review and approve their reports, as it is his responsibility to make sure all information is accurate and prepared in accordance with established policy and procedure. The United States criminal justice system is a system that acts to enforce the criminal laws of the country. In the United States, the criminal justice system is divided in three categories: federal, state and military.

In addition to these three categories, each state has separate divisions that deal with adult and juvenile cases. Each of these systems is comprised of three major components. The first component of the criminal justice system and perhaps the most important and dangerous is law enforcement. This includes the local police department with all of its police officers and detectives. These people head the criminal justice system because they are the ones responsible for finding and capturing individuals who break the laws set forth by the state, federal government or the military.

The second component is the court; the court system includes prosecution and defense lawyers, judges and juries. These individuals make sure offenders are given fair trails. Judges, also known as finders of facts, hear the cases and preside over the participants to make sure that all laws are followed while the cases are being tried. Some cases are tried in front of a judge only, while others have a jury of 12 citizens who determine the guilt or innocence of a defendant based on facts brought forth during a trial.

The last but not least is corrections. The correction system, which is tightly intertwined with the previous two components, is very important and quite large. The correction individuals ensure that a defendant’s punishment and all of its stipulations are carried out. Like any organization, state and local criminal justice agencies must deal with issues of organizational management and employ the management styles that best allow them to achieve their objectives of crime prevention, adjudication of criminal offenses, and punishment of offenders.

In today’s world we have developed different styles of management that could apply to law enforcement agencies, criminal courts, and correctional facilities and departments. In my opinion managers are more important than supervisor because they have more responsibilities under their shoulders. Systems management requires a complete approach to organizational leadership, which involves not only management of personnel, but also of organizational knowledge. A systems approach to management recognizes the complexity of modern organizational processes.

In this perspective, organizations function based on the information and data that employees can access. A successful agency must properly manage all of these elements. Features of systems management include specialization within components of a large system and coordination among different components. System management could serve criminal justice agencies well, and some organizations exhibit elements of this approach. For example, many large law enforcement organizations have specialized divisions, such as homicide, gang enforcement, vice, and others, but with cooperation among these different units.

In general Criminal Justice Administration it is important because in order for law enforcement agencies to work properly a Criminal Justice Administrator needs to be in charge. Law enforcement agencies and organizations devoted to research in the field of criminal justice administration sometimes need professional researchers to perform ongoing work. Examples might include research into the most effective ways to run criminal justice agencies and how budgets impact the administration of criminal justice.

Administrators may have tasks that can include mathematical models and other methods in order to assess policies so those in the administrative side can make informed decisions. I personally believe that Criminal Justice Administration is not failing it just have its ups and downs. We have to keep in mind that in order for a criminal justice administrator to be successful he/she has to have a good working idea of the legal system and the role they play in it.