NCJ Number
189665
Journal
Community Corrections Report Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Dated: May/June 2001 Pages: 49-50,58-60,61
Date Published
2001
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article provides an overview of the proceedings of a working symposium of correctional leaders convened to define the human resource parameters of the correctional organization of the future.
Abstract
In early May of 2001, the Northeast Regional Field Coordinators (RFCs) of the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) convened the working symposium to address those organizational issues left unresolved at the National Institute of Justice symposium conducted 16 months earlier. The RFCs sent invitations to 15 correctional leaders from the region's 12 States and the District of Columbia. Nine were able to attend the symposium. In order to conduct its work, the symposium used the software version of "storyboarding" entitled SolutionsMap, which incorporates the principle of "Back Planning" in its methodology. This principle forced the participants to define outcomes and then work back to identify the conditions required to produce the outcomes. Participants focused, although not exclusively, on outcomes consonant with community and restorative justice paradigms. They noted the structural and cultural changes that would have to occur in their organizations to develop the capacity to achieve the outcomes defined. The end product was to be a preliminary needs assessment for correctional organizational change that would be of use to human resource planners and practitioners in envisioning managerial and staff performance development activities in the region over the next decade. Participants identified several major categories for organizational change within corrections systems: redefining community responsibilities and collaboration, the fiscal and economic context of change, the use of science and technology, roles and responsibilities, and the development of new management strategies. This article outlines the factors that must be addressed in each of these areas in order to achieve the organizational change envisioned by the symposium participants. 5 figures