The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) is a state-operated agency that serves the entire state of Georgia. The mission of DJJ is to ensure that it serves and protects Georgia’s citizens by holding youthful offenders responsible for their crimes through the conveyance of facilities and prohibitions in suitable environments. Moreover, DJJ aims at ensuring that the youth become better citizens. The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice manages twenty-two regional youth detention centers and six youth development campuses. According to the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (n.d a), more than 3,000 employees work diligently to make sure that the young lives within DJJ’s care are taken care of hence enabling them to become better members of the society. The primary purpose of DJJ is to effect justice and shape young offenders’ lives. This is by ensuring that young offenders are held responsible for their actions. Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice has various Youth Development campuses (YDCS) that offer training to the youth and ensure that once they get back to society, they can become better citizens. DJJ has set up a victim services center aimed at helping Georgians who have become affected by crime. The department provides victims with information related to the criminal justice process, provided support and advocacy services for rape and sexual abuse victims, and helping victims in filling the crime compensation applications (Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, n.d b). DJJ has set up a volunteer program. The aim of this program is to allow volunteers who would like to help in improving the lives of young offenders. Through the Volunteers Program, DJJ can recruit and screen prospective volunteers and place them in orientation and training programs. According to the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (n.dc), it later places successful applicants in its Community Services Offices, Youth Detention Centers, and Regional Youth Detention Centers. For an individual to serve as a volunteer, must meet the following requirements; be 18 years and above, have valid social security number, legal US citizen, and complete the intern/ volunteer application. DJJ has launched the Rescue 2 Restore Animal Program. This initiative aims to help in harnessing restorative power to the human-animal bonding. The program mostly targets the dogs through the dog training programs and therapy dog interactions. The aim of setting up the program is to help the youth in attaining life skills such as community service, educational success, positive and patient interactions, and responsibility. The two significant factors associated with youth incarceration and arrests include unhealthy and unproductive adulthood. It is an indication that the juvenile detention centers must have in place programs and staff who will ensure that once the youth get back to society, they are not unproductive and unhealthy. However, its services have continued to grapple due to an increased shortage of staff. The juvenile centers have become less safe. The youth will most likely not be taken through the required rehabilitation programs, and once released into society, they resume back to their delinquent ways. The juvenile justice systems have been cited for having very high turnover rates due to poor pay and harsh work conditions. The Juvenile Detention centers have been accused of using extreme force on the youth, such as abusive disciplinary practices. The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice is a multi-faced state agency at Georgia that offers a wide range of services to the youths that have been found guilty at Georgia. Its services are mainly based on the juvenile correctional facilities. For 11 years, the GDJJ operated under the federal oversight. This was the Justice Department of the United States looked into the reports of abuse and overcrowding. The oversight to the agency ended in 2009. The agency ensures that every day at the 98 courts services offices and the 26 facilities in Georgia, they get to supervise, detail and oversee treatment programs for the young people that the juvenile courts have referred ( Russell, . 2017) The agency works in collaboration with the private, the public and the community groups to ensure that they achieve their goals. GDJJ takes pride as one of the biggest educator in the region having been accredited by both the Correctional Education Association and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The agency ensures they offer educational opportunity to the juveniles detained a chance to have career vocational skills and high school diploma. The agency manages to serve more than 52000 youth. ( Fernandez, et al. 2015) The number includes youths that have been sentenced for short term incarceration, those on probation, detainees from shared local counties and the youths that have been committed wholly by the department of juvenile justice. The organization can therefore comfortably say that it has achieved in restoring the glory of most of the youth offenders in Georgia by offering them a wide variety of services to benefit their life. The agency organizational design is formulated to help offer organizational leadership that helps in the realization of the company mission and vision. The agency headquarter is at Decatur, Georgia. GDJJ has managed to secure 26 facilities to help accomplish its goals and objectives ( Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (n.d d) . The executive management of the agency is made up of the Chief of Staff, Four Deputy Commissioners and the Assistant commissioners. The management is also made up of the Chief Financial Officer, the Associate Superintendent of Schools and the General Counsel that reports to the Commissioner directly. ( Fernandez, et al. 2015) The organization design has been effective in the formulation of major policy decisions and provision of the main services to the detained youths. At the head of the hierarchy is the Commissioner. He is charged with the duty of managing the day to day activities of the agency. This is quite a demanding job as the agency has over 3500 employees and thousands of youths that have been found guilty of the different crimes that they committed. Below the Commissioner is the chief of staff and must be a law professional who can effectively handle the roles of the chief of staff. Next in authority after the chief of staff is the Assistant Commissioner. The role of the assistant commissioner is to ensure the implementation of the Commissioner’s guidance and also offering strategic direction for all the Divisions that are below him ( Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (n.d d) . Some of the Divisions below him are the Division of Support Services, Division of Community Services, Division of Secure Campuses and the Division of Administrative Services. There is the Deputy Superintendent of Schools that is a profession is educational leadership. This position is meant to deal with school matters that the agency is in charge of. The Chief Finance Officer is charged with the duty of managing the organization’s finance and the allocation of resources.
With the arrangement of the different officials in the executive management, the agency has managed to successfully run its operations for many years. Each official is aware of their duty. The agency have always ensured that they select the best professionals for the positions. This is to ensure that the team is well skilled to handle the different agency operations. There is a collaboration between the executive management to ensure that all the organization goals are achieved. . The collaboration between the officials ensures that there is team work which also contributes to the strong policies which have guided the operation. Having the best professionals to handle the organizational tasks is also a key reason why the agency has been making best decisions which are at the interest of the primary. The organization should include positions for agency president and board of directors that will assess how effective the implementation of the company business goals are being conducted. This will help in serving the business needs of the agency without interfering with the goals and objectives of the business ( Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (n.d d) . Having the position for the president in the organization design, he will be in charge of the business needs, doing the oversight roles whether the revenue model of the agency is being well implemented. The president will be the head of the board of directors. Their role will be to meet after some time and evaluate the performance of the agency in terms of business. This will ensure that the agency does not concentrate in achieving the primary goals and objectives but also ensures that they have a keener look into the business needs. Despite being an agency that is committed to ensuring the youths that have been convicted get the chance to attend the High School Diploma and the Vocational skills, the agency must also ensure that their source of income is well maintained and also look for other possible sources of revenue ( Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (n.d d) . The agency has numerous employees that need to be paid for their services. Their motivation to working hard and achieving the company goals is by looking for how the revenue model can be increased for better compensation of the over 3500 employees. The change will create a positive impact in delivering of quality service by ensuring the primary objectives of the agency run parallel to the business needs of the agency. The business need will be achieved smoothly through redesigning the organization management set up. The new positions introduced should collaborate with the existing positions to ensure that even the new policies made and the decision making process are strong. The new change should however be implemented when the agency have set in place the best infrastructure that will accommodate the change. However, its implementation will ensure there is a motivated employees that will be working hard and with passion to ensure that the primary goals of the agency has been achieved. The change will also place the agency at a better position to create new facilities that will see more convicted young people getting helped. This will also be an improvement to delivery of quality service. Insufficient funds have been affected the success of the agency. It has also affected the agency’s planning and organization design, decision making and implementation. There have been instances of sponsors overpromising to release funds but fail to deliver their promises ( Kaasa, et al. 2019). Increased number of juveniles has also affected the planning. Large number leads to organization developing financial and planning constraints. The organization should set time frame for the promised money by the sponsors. It will help to eliminate the problems of delays. The agency should also educate the youths on the reasons to abide by the laws to reduce the number of convicted juveniles.
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References
Fernandez, M., McClain, D., Brown Williams, B., & Ellison, P. (2015). PBIS in Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice: Data dashboard and radar reports utilized for team data-based decision-making with facility team leader perspectives. Residential Treatment for Children & Youth , 32 (4), 334-343.
Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (n.d d). DJJ Organization. Retrieved from https://djj.georgia.gov/djj-organization
Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice. (n.d a). Retrieved from https://djj.georgia.gov/
Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice. (n.d b). Victims Services. Retrieved from https://djj.georgia.gov/djj-divisions/office-professional-development-standards/victim-services
Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice. (n.d c). Volunteer Services . Retrieved from https://djj.georgia.gov/djj-divisions/office-professional-development-standards/volunteer-services
Kaasa, S. O., Vidal, S., Meadows, K., Foster, M., Lowe, N., Westat, & United States of America. (2019). Kentucky Juvenile Justice Reform Evaluation: Implementation Evaluation Report.
Russell, J., & Manske, E. (2017). Achieving juvenile justice reforms through decision making structures: The case of Georgia. Journal of Juvenile Justice , 6 (1), 98-111.
