Week 1 – Generational Differences in the Criminal Justice Workforce 1

Week 1 – Generational Differences in the Criminal Justice Workforce

Dustin Houston

CJA/395
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Generational Differences

There are large numbers of the agencies work for the criminal justice system. It may include the

police and court work together in order to save the community and achieve their goals for

welfare of the society. There should be proper management and leadership to maintain the aspect

of the criminal justice system. The agencies perform the different responsibilities towards the

work to protect the victim, prosecute the guilty, provide rehabilitation and give punishment to

criminal offenders. For the discussion for this paper, I choose the department of police. It is

considered the most effective agency. The police agency is considered the most effective agency.

The police member highly control the system and responsible to maintain the social system in

the society (Batts, 2012). The paper also discusses the management, leadership and relates to the

criminal justice system and discusses their receptive roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, the

paper will also discuss different generation of the criminal justice system and provide the best

details of the best leadership. It is quite evident to describe the management and leadership in

criminal justice organization. The management is the ongoing process to organize people,

resources and require finance to accomplish the tasks and achieve the organizational goals

(Stojkovic, 2014). The processes of the management are handled by many individuals like upper,

middle and lower management. The functions of the management are covered including proper

planning, organizing, giving commands and get the proper feedback. Managers face difficult

tasks with ever changing environment. The managers will have to work to formulate tasks, make

decisions, focus on mission, frame policies and procedure and unite the employees in order to

complete the tasks (Stojkovic, 2014). The position of the employees is described as a supervising

controlling and overseeing of the criminal justice system. All employees play an integral role.
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The three agencies such as police, court and correction of the criminal justice system use the

same management style. (Stojkovic, 2014).

Leadership

Leadership is the most important task. The main responsibility of the leader is to motivate and

inspire the workers to take part in work to accomplish organizational goals. Good leaders lead

employees to complete their projects on time. The leaders assist the employees to bring positive

changes in the organization to achieve long term goals. In the criminal justice, the leaders adopt

the practice of inspiration and motivate the others to improve ethical performance in their

obligation and duties (Stojkovic, 2014)”. When we discuss about the agencies like police, the

leaders must provide the quality leadership. They are charged to lead the officers in their

operational work, in pursuit of investigation and arrest the law breaker.

Organization

The organization of the company consist of the group of people, who work together to achieve

their organizational goals. The organization must focus on structure, size, values and main

mission of the organization. It varies from one place to another place while the criminal

organization can get the benefits, when the criminal justice system consists of non-profit entities

and the service based (Stojkovic, 2014)”. The companies do not make any attempt to generate

the profit. The profit is only used to deliver services identify, prevent, deter and handle crimes.

The courts, police and the correctors play the integral part in major organization for criminal

justice.

The role of a manager and Leader

Like many others organizations, the criminal justice system employ the leaders and managers to

steer their organization. Third roles are vary from one organization to another organization but
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they all implement proper planning, coordinating, commanding and providing feedback

(Stojkovic, 2014). The manager and leader also know that how to motivate and encourage the

people to accomplish their tasks in time but also complete it in an efficient way. The good leader

possess with the qualities of persistent in nature, goal oriented, responsible and excellent

communicator. The leader has characteristics of dedication, and fully committed in criminal

investigation and take risk in order to target main clue. The leader duties may include that assign

tasks, give direction, motivate and inspire the employees to get organizational goals (Stojkovic,

2014).

Describing different generations in today’s criminal justice

The generation can be defined as a group of individual born in certain area. It can categorize by

the age limitation (Levin, 2001). In the USA, there are four different generation in workforce.

Veteran are born in between 1922 and 1945, Baby Boomers; Those born between 1946 and

1964, Generation X; Born between 1965 and 1980, and Generation Y or millennial which is

everyone 1981 through 2000 (Levin, 2001). Veterans are just retired and baby boomer is just

making plans for retirements. It leaves the workforce recruiting Generation X and Generation Y

either just starting or waiting to be future officers. In the present era, every generation have their

own characteristics and being the baby boomer, Gen X and Y can all be in the workforce, there

are lots of take in. Each generation have their behavior patterns, personalities, beliefs, attitudes

and values. This generation is different because of their life experiences, level of understanding,

knowledge, judgment, logic and restraint. (Levin, 2001).

The veteran generation is most loyal to their profession. They are highly dedicated, conformist

and security conscious. They possess strong commitment to team work and do work collborately.

Babay boomer gives the glimpse of the optimistic look and do work more efficiently and self-
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reliant towards employees and result oriented. They give more priority to the work and emphasis

on more effort rather than the personal life (Yu & Miller, 2005)... When they adopt the

leadership style, they are needed to be directed by the manager and follow the chain of command

and carry out the instructions. But the baby boomer does not like the changes in the organization.

They are not technically up to date. Generation X engaged to independent self-starter who are

resistant to the authority (Yu & Miller, 2005)... they are loyal with employees and familier with

the technical skills. They are interested to update the knowledge and application to do work in

and technology savvy. But they are not dedicated like the others generation and give the lower

priority to the work, finally, the generation Y are considered non-conformists and collaborative.

They have ability to do more hard work and like to become the part of the team (Levin, 2001).

They are very resilient to navigate the change and ability to multitasking. This generation is

educated and technology savvy.

Aspects of management and leadership in different generations

Leadership is the ability to lead the people in the organization. On the other hand management is

the process to control and manage the people. In the workforce, both manager and leader

struggle with the generational differences. The problem arises because of the conflict ideas and

views of the workers belong to the different areas (Levin, 2001). There are some following

aspects for leadership and management in the different generations.

1) Focusing on goals and expectations: Setting goals and expectations, the police and

management approach towards the police officers help to solve generational problems.

problems (Batts, 2012).

2) Inclusion and Mentoring: The different generation adopts the mentor approach. It allows

the managers and leaders to add experiences of different generation. It helps to focus
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potency of skills in accordance with technology and does work collective to get results

faster. (Batts, 2012).

3) Excellent Communication: A leader possesses skills to effectively communicate with

different generation. Because of these abilities, the leaders are able to manage the

problems at every level.

4) Motivate Employees: Motivation is one of the most important aspects of leadership and

management in leading different generations effectively. The performance can often be

improved when properly motivated to achieve organizational goals. Police leaders and

managers should encourage the team on the right track on strategies and goals of

organization (Batts, 2012)

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References

Batts, Anthony W. Smoot, Sean Michael. And Scrivner, Ellen. (2012), Police Leadership

Challenges in a Changing World, New Perspectives in Policing, National institute of

justice, July 2012.

Levin, M. (2001). ‘Bridging the generation gap’, Association management Vol. 53, No. 1.

Stojkovic, Stan; Kalinich, David; Klofas, John (2014). Criminal Justice Organizations:

Administration and Management. Cengage Learning, 28-Mar-2014

Yu, Huichun and Miller, peter. (2005), Leadership style: the X generation and baby boomers

compared in different cultural contexts, Southern Cross University.