CHAPTER 8
Personnel Evaluation and Supervision
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, the students will have achieved the following objectives:
• Understand the difficulty in arriving at goal consensus within criminal justice
organizations
• Comprehend the importance of organizational structure to employee supervision
• Know the differences between the human-service approach to employee supervision
KEY TERMS
centralization
clear delegation of authority
complexity
conceptual skills
decentralization
differentiation
formalization
goal consensus
participative management
rulification
sharing of power
span of control
spatial dispersion
specialization
supportive supervisor
technical skills
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Criminal Justice Administration: The Search for Goal Consensus
A. As an organizational issue, employee supervision and evaluation has gained
heightened importance among criminal justice administrators.
2. Current attempts at restructuring police organizations, court systems, and
correctional organizations have centered on questions of how employees should
B. Criminal justice organizations are expected to provide multiple services to the
community.
1. All components of the criminal justice system have multiple goals and
functions.
3. The police role is multidimensional and often involves goal primacy conflict.
C. For criminal justice administrators:
2. the central objective is to determine the community’s goals and the most
efficient ways to meet those goals.
II. Organizational Structure and Employee Evaluation and Supervision
A. Criminal justice organizational variations mandate creativity by administrators in
development of evaluation and supervision methods.
B. Issues (besides size) that can affect evaluation and supervision approaches
employed by criminal justice administrators include:
1. budget
3. the degree to which the organization is centralized or decentralized in its
decision-making processes
III. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Example
A. Lozer cites seven ways in which poor supervision and undirected evaluation can lead
to employee complaints of unlawful supervision
1. Lack of clearly communicate rules, policies and procedures
3. Failure to address problems and concern
5. Inadequate supporting evidence
7. Management sets the tone in the workplace
IV. Models of Employee Supervision
A. Public agencies seeking to improve the quality of employee supervision have
attempted to apply private-sector principles and practices to public sector
agencies, including those within the criminal justice system. Such efforts have
included:
1. The traditional model of employee supervision, which stresses:
a. centralized authority
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1) a hierarchy that stresses an identifiable span of control, precise unity of
command, and clear delegation of authority
3) specialization of services and employee activities
2. The human service model of employee supervision, which:
a. views the supervision process within the context of both employee and
organizational goals
b. attempts to integrate employee goals into organizational goals
c. holds as its central tenets less centralization, fewer and more clearly defined
rules, and less bureaucracy
B. Since the mid-1960s, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has employed a supervisory
model known as unit management that features:
2. a multidisciplinary staff
4. a unit staff with administrative authority over all aspects of inmate living and
programming
6. rotating evening and weekend shift assignments for unit staff, in addition to the
unit correctional officers
C. Wright posits a new model for correctional employee supervision centered around:
1. employee ownership
3. the sharing of power
V. Is the Human Service Model Possible in Criminal Justice Organizations?
1. routinization
3. consistent policies and procedures
D. Humanistic attempts to reorganize the ways of doing business in criminal justice
organizations require:
1. greater clarity of purposes (identifying the product)
3. a well-defined technology or methodology to produce the product (how to make
the product)
E. Wilson shows that agreement on these matters is neither possible nor desirable,
thus leaving traditional bureaucracy as the only possible outcome.
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F. Wilson contends that obstacles to innovation in public organizations include
issues of:
1. accountability
3. fiscal integrity
4. efficiency
VI. Guidelines for Performance Evaluation and Supervision
A. Yukl’s guidelines for criminal justice supervisors in the supervision and
evaluation of employees include:
1. Defining job responsibilities, which includes explaining and clarifying:
a. the important job responsibilities
2. Assigning work, which includes:
a. clearly explaining the assignment
3. Setting performance goals, which means setting goals:
a. for relevant aspects of performance
b. that are clear and specific
c. that are challenging but realistic
d. that include target dates for attainment of each goal
B. Oettmeir and Wycoff model for evaluation and supervision of police officers
offers three levels of examination that focuses on:
2. team performance
3. the organization’s internal activities or procedures
C. Numerous writers have suggested a 360 degree model of employee supervision
that:
2. envisions greater input from those affected by employee’s actions
3. has both internal and external dominant stakeholders
D. Scrivner identifies nine dimensions to police officer performance appraisal:
1. Communication skills
3. Integrity
5. Work ethic
7. Safety
9. Motor vehicle operation
E. Engel found four styles of supervision among police sergeants:
1. Traditional
3. Supportive
4. Active
F. Effective supervision within criminal justice organizations occurs when
supervisors exhibit
2. human skills
3. conceptual skills
CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter examined employee supervision and evaluation. We discussed how such a
concept must be placed within the context of multiple and competing goals. Criminal justice
organizations are expected to accomplish many things for many different people; arriving at
in the accomplishment of larger objectives in criminal justice organizations. This model of
employee supervision has many critics.
In contrast, the humanistic model of employee supervision seeks to break down the
traditional bureaucracy found in public service organizations. We examined how a humanistic
model of employee supervision could be realized, given the constraints and limitations that face
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Will goal consensus in criminal justice organizations ever be possible? What are the
2. This chapter discusses the importance of structure to the delivery of criminal justice
services. Can police organizations or prisons, for example, be less formal and more
decentralized in their structures? Why or why not? What goals of police organizations are
sacrificed, if any, through decentralization? What about decentralization and employee
accountability?
3. What are some major problems with implementing the ideas of a human service model of
employee supervision in criminal justice organizations? How would employees react to
such a supervision model?
4. Given the nature of criminal justice organizations, is the traditional model of employee
supervision the best possible choice? State the advantages and disadvantages. Do the
critics of the model overstate their case?
5. What type of supervisor do most employees like to work for? A traditional, innovative or
supportive supervisor? Do you believe that employee personalities may influence what
type of supervisor is favored?
DISCUSSION TOPICS/STUDENT ACTIVITIES
1. Form the students into three groups. Give the groups 20 minutes to analyze the case study
on pages 242-244 of the text (The Correctional Sergeant’s Dilemma). Assign each group
3. Have the students discuss when rulification is important to a jail organization and
when is it not important.
5. Divide the students into three groups. Present them all with some employee dilemma, i.e.
taking on additional duties for the same pay. Have one group represent innovative
INTERNET CONNECTIONS
1. Navigate to http://nicic.org/Library/015894 to access the National Institute of Corrections
Corrections Library web page and links to its “Staff Supervision Training for Corrections
2. View the Florida State Courts Personnel Regulations, including its section on Employee
3. Access Michael L. Birzer’s article “Police Supervision in the 21st Century,” originally
5. Navigate to the National Center of State Courts to read about the job descriptions and