NCJ Number
225939
Date Published
2008
Length
22 pages
Annotation
In this chapter, female offender program evaluation is taken to the next level by building on the system perspective, stressing the importance of using evidence-based management to set public policy and to manage the operations of organizations.
Abstract
This perspective on using data to manage the competing priorities of an organization that provides female offender programs is intended to help put the debate over program success factors in a context beyond the academic. It allows for the stepping out of the ongoing search for which factors are the best indicators of program success to start managing with the factors that are available today. The author describes the importance of developing an organization-wide version of data to enable standardized internal analysis, external data-sharing, and program evaluations, and describes the strategic planning process, which leverages enterprise data to build a bridge from the organizational mission and goals through the various management perspectives, objectives, key performance indicators, and the performance metrics for individual programs. He explains the basics of how to undertake an ambitious management transformation and the resulting benefits the organization and the community can expect. For programs that serve female offenders, even the best management framework and performance data are not going to improve the services provided unless they permeate the decisionmaking process at all levels of the organization. Figures, table, and references