The website (Justice.gov, 2020) has several programs and programs that it rates as "effective," "no effect," and "promising." Two particular fascinating programs on the site rated are 'the better futures program' and 'a stop smoking in schools trial (ASSIST) program.' Both programs were designed to help young persons as Better futures was for young people under foster care and ASSIST for 12-13-year-olds. While "The Better Futures" was designed to enhance higher education participation among foster care youths that have mental conditions, ASSIST sought to spread and sustain norms of non-smoking behaviors among the 12-13-year-olds. The Better Futures program was delivered over ten months while the ASSIST program is still active and on-going. Both programs were premised and substantially depend on mentoring, although The Better Futures program used expert adult mentors while ASSIST used trained peer mentors. The two programs were both based on evidence-based studies that determined much of the development of their profiles. The implementation of the Better Futures program required the coordination of several; stakeholders such as community colleges, universities, schools, foster care agencies, and other key service providers in the area. On the contrary, the ASSIST program required mainly the trainers and the interested schools working together.
Briefly provide the title and describe your two choices from "programs" or "practices" (provide web links to each article).
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The first program chosen is "the Better futures program," while the second one is the "ASSIST program." I chose "The Better Futures program" for its focus on education for young people with mental health issues, an area of significant value in society. When well tapped, the mentally challenged persons have the abilities and skills to help them and add value to the community (Mkrttchian & Aleshina, 2020). The program's steps in helping these mentally challenged young people make it of interest to promote social and emotional competency and build community resilience. The second program, "ASSIST" selection is for its relationship to criminal justice as it focuses on helping 12-13-year-olds stop or avoids smoking. Drug abuse is related to crime rates and the whole justice system, and thus, the study's focus makes it essential to consider.
Links to the programs:
The Better Futures program: https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/programdetails?id=483#eb
A Stop Smoking in Schools Trial (ASSIST) program: https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/programdetails?id=481#ii
Which one was rated "NO EFFECTS," and why?
A Stop Smoking in Schools Trial (ASSIST) program was rated "No EFFECTS." The program rating was because of its little or no impact on the 12-13-year-olds under the program. The evaluation of smoking odds showed no significant difference between the intervention group and the students in the control group in the past weeks for the 2-year post-intervention period.
Which one was rated "EFFECTIVE" and why?
The Better Futures program was rated "EFFECTIVE." The rating was because of the significant positive impacts the program had on the participants. There was a significant statistically favorable change in the measure of self-efficacy, quality of life, post-secondary preparation, and transition planning among participants. The youths in the intervention group showed more favorable changes four times better than the control group's youths.
What is your overall impression of the www.crimesolutions.gov rating system?
The www.crimesolutions.gov rating system is premised on the program's effectiveness or practice for its scheduled time-frame and beyond. The rating system is accurate and reliable. It evaluates the holistic impacts of a program or a practice based on the initial objectives, which are essential in assessing their effectiveness.
Discussion 3
What is your understanding of the concept of management by objectives (MBO)?
Management by objectives is a model for strategic management that can enhance organizational, group, or team performance by setting out agreeable objectives to both employees and the management team. MBO involves setting strategic goals that resonate with action plans. Organizations with teams that use MBO will have better employee participation and commitment and better alignment of objectives throughout the organization than firms that don't apply MBO. The step-wise and inclusive nature of MBO allows employees to make their input count in team activities and performance. The employees are allowed to give their views, opinions and explain their ideas to help a team or organization succeed. MBO is an excellent way of comparing actual achievements and performance against the set objectives. Under MBO, employees receive regular feedback, focusing on rewards, personal growth, and development rather than punishment or negativity for failing to achieve goals. According to Islami et al. (2018), MBO uses five key steps: determination or revision of organizational objectives, translation of the objectives to employees, stimulating employee participation, monitoring employee progress, and evaluation-cum-rewarding employee progress.
Read the description of the group problem GROUP PROJECT – The Virtual Criminal Justice Alliance. Select three areas where you feel MBO would be a useful management tool to utilize. Explain why you believe using MBO could help overcome obstacles and lead to a more effective result
In the case of "The Virtual Criminal Justice Alliance," MBO would be useful in investigating the Very Bad Bike Club (VBBC) members and associates, enhancing commitment, collaboration, communication among stakeholders, and preventing future criminal activities by VBBC or other criminal entities in Virtual. The current situation is that VBBC has a vast network of members and associates in the government, in schools, in prison, detention centers, and corporate firms, and in other areas making it difficult to conduct a discrete, tangible investigation. VBBC has compromised the whole system and is ahead of the investigation against them, thus evading the authorities. MBO can help resolve this investigation stalemate by following the various team management steps by objectives (TMBO). People and institutions involved in the investigation against VBBC need to be re-organized into teams. The re-organization should involve assigning the right people to the right teams dependent on their knowledge, skills, abilities, and work experience to execute the assigned tasks. Participants feel more confident when assigned work they can do and have the right resources or tools for performing the job (Lindsjørnet al., 2016).
Individual teams will then note any unforeseen events that could lead to conflict. As the team members share ideas and raise concerns, they will communicate and collaborate more amongst themselves and their leaders. The managers and leaders of teams will then work with their members to clarify their writing goals to help members focus their efforts. The managers will regularly monitor team goals and provide feedback to the team members. Finally, the managers will celebrate the success and dissolve the teams once the objectives have been achieved. The Virtual Police department VBBC taskforce, Virtual Office of the prosecutor, correctional facility department, the state department of parole, and other security stakeholders in Virtual will then recreate new teams that can help prevent the formation of other criminal organizations or resurfacing of the previous ones using MBO. As Lacerenza et al. (2018) affirm that MBO requires measuring the actual performance against real results. It will be prudent for the managers to evaluate the process's success with tangible evidence of change.
Discussion 4
Discuss one of the Barriers within the profession, as explained by Schafer. What is your assessment of that barrier?
One of Schafer's barriers in the policing profession is structural limitations that include time, money, temporal, and personnel. Structural limitations impede effective continuity of police force, especially the supervisory aspect of policing. The failure to develop personnel affects transition, especially when there are a high number of retirees. There is a lack of system, commitment, and resources to prepare young people to take on the leadership roles left vacant after experienced, competent personnel retire. I couldn't agree more that the absence of time, money, and leadership development plans is the main barrier to successful policing. When there are no developed leaders who can successfully take on supervisory roles, it becomes a problem as the agency's success relies on sound and competent leadership. The agency has to institute programs that will continually identify and develop young officers suitable for supervisory positions, give them opportunities s to develop their leadership experience or skills. Succession planning is crucial not only in policing but also in other leadership spheres in any organization for effective continuity, even in crises and emergencies (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). The right amounts of time and finances need to be invested in developing top-quality leaders to propel organizations to better performances and success with a perspective of future projections.
Several leadership behaviors are discussed by Yukl. Select one of those behaviors that you feel is the most important or near the top of the list. Discuss that behavior and explain your rationale for selecting it.
One of the most crucial leadership behaviors discussed by Yukl is monitoring. The choice of monitoring, a task-oriented leadership behavior, is because it's one of the most popular behaviors among leaders. Whether it's remotely or face-to-face, leaders are always monitoring people, performance, and resources. Monitoring as a leadership behavior happens in many ways, such as direct observation of activities, examining records or communications of activities in the information systems, and performance review sessions (Yukl, 2017). Monitoring involves leaders assessing if their followers or employees are undertaking their assigned works. Monitoring also includes leaders checking the progress of work against the plan and if tasks are adequately performed. Monitoring helps leaders detect problems and opportunities and use the information from monitoring to praise employees or determine their coaching needs.
c) In the reading by Malos, eight leadership theories are presented. Select one theory that you believe has little validity or legitimacy. Briefly discuss that theory and then explain why you made your selection.
One of the Malos eight leadership theories that I believe is of little validity or legitimacy is "the Great Man Theories." The theory is premised on great leadership due to innate natural attributes, for instance, superior intellect, divine inspiration, and heroic courage, among other traits. The theory assumes leadership capacity is inherent, and those great leaders are born and not made. Under the theory, great leaders are mythic, heroic, and bound to rise to outstanding leadership in times of need. I chose the theory because it does not fully measure how these natural abilities contribute to the leaders' success. The theory has an insufficient representation of all key aspects of its construct. The theory by face validity is more informal, and its tests do not correspond to the behavioral theories' results.
Discussion 5
Utilizing publicly available search engines identifies an example whereby a lack of information sharing among criminal justice organizations may have a negative outcome.
An example is the Ames spy case in which Aldrich H Ames, who had been a CIA employee for over three decades in the operations department, was charged for spying. The investigation of the case reveals that coordination problems between the FBI, DCI, and CIA may have led to the crime (Creech, 2020). The outcome of the crime was negative as it led to the murder of over 10 CIA assets. The FBI and CIA failed to properly coordinate counterintelligence cases between them, which led to Ames' continued crimes.
Discuss some factors that served as a barrier to exchanging information among relevant agencies. (CANNOT USE 9/11) What are some steps that could have been taken to overcome the barriers you identified in part 1?
Some of the factors that served as a barrier to exchanging information between the FBI and CIA in the case are bureaucratic conflicts, legal requirements of accountability and responsibility, divided loyalty, modi operandi, and turf. The barriers could have been overcome by continual review of the CIA and FBI members' performance and freely exchanging necessary information between the two agencies (Crumpler, 2018). Ames' supervisors should have followed the law in addressing the initial findings of espionage and subversion on Ames instead of applying lenient internal disciplinary measures and concealing the issues from the FBI. They would have shared the information with the FBI for further investigation and avoided further damage.
References
Creech, G. E. (2020). "Real" Insider Threat: Toxic Workplace Behavior in the Intelligence Community. International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 1-27.
Crumpler, J. (2018). Globalization's Impact on Intelligence Failures: Considerations for Reform in the US Security Clearance Model and the Intelligence Community's Need for an Adaptation Culture. Journal of Homeland and National Security Perspectives, 5(1) , 18.
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4) , 261-269.
Islami, X., Mulolli, E., & Mustafa, N. (2018). Using Management by Objectives as a performance appraisal tool for employee satisfaction. Future Business Journal, 4(1) , 94-108.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fbj.2018.01.001.
Justice.gov. (2020, July 29). National Institute of Justice. Crime Solutions , https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/rated-programs.
Lacerenza, C. N., Marlow, S. L., Tannenbaum, S. I., & Salas, E. (2018). Team development interventions: Evidence-based approaches for improving teamwork. American Psychologist, 73(4) , 517.https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/amp0000295.
Lindsjørn, Y., Sjøberg, D. I., Dingsøyr, T., Bergersen, G. R., & Dybå, T. (2016). Teamwork quality and project success in software development: A survey of agile development teams. Journal of Systems and Software, 122 , 274-286.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2016.09.028.
Mkrttchian, V., & Aleshina, E. (2020). Providing Quality Education for Persons With Disabilities Through the Implementation of Individual Educational Programs Managed by the Intelligent Agents in the Sliding Mode. Accessibility and Diversity in Education: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice , 291-295.https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/amp0000707.
Yukl, G. (2017). Effective leadership behavior: What we know and what questions need more attention. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(4) , 66-85. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2012.0088.
