Organizational change & staff empowerment

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The dual role of a parole officer makes it one of the most difficult occupations. First, the officer is mandated to protect the community from parolees who goes off the straight and narrow. Second, the

officer helps the parolee integrate back into society and become a productive community member. This is a balancing act with little room for error. The repercussions of one parole case going bad and being covered by the media cause the entire parole system to be questioned. At the same time, when a parolee moves out without incident, the only people who rejoice are the officers who came close to the case file. The accountability of the officer to serve the public interest and the parolee's needs is often at odds and parole suffers as a consequence.

In New Jersey, the average caseload has decreased from 85 cases to 45 cases during the past five years. Officers have a wide variety of graduated sanctions at their disposal when parolees begin to go astray. Sanctions such as electronic monitoring, curfews, day reporting centers, special conditions, intense supervision caseloads, etc., help officers keep parolees in the community. This is an opportunity for parolees to not only stay in the community, but also to work through the problems of street life they will encounter during parole. These sanctions put officers at risk because the balance of leaving someone out on the street versus a violation hearing can be a question of an officer's judgment. The sanction process also involves the level of trust the system has in its officers to use their discretion to work cases. This is where the supervisory staff must enter the picture -- both legally and morally.

Is the role of the supervisor to second-guess each of the parole officer's decisions based on the vacuum of the supervisor's own past experiences? Or is it to encourage creative decisions by the officer, who knows the case within the operating framework of the agency? A good supervisor knows when to let the officer work a case with guidance and when to tell the officer that it is time for a revocation hearing to be scheduled. It is difficult for a supervisor to realize that he or she is not working the case and that the officer is the expert. Conversely, the supervisor may experience a great deal of satisfaction by having staff who can function with minimal direction. The supervisor should get satisfaction from the good work of the officers and not the other way around.

The New Jersey Model

The New Jersey Division of Parole operates within the New Jersey State Parole Board. It consists of 13 district offices located throughout the state, most of which are located in large urban centers such as Jersey City, Newark, Paterson, Camden and Atlantic City. Each district office is managed by a district parole supervisor and has two assistant district parole supervisors and 20 to 30 parole officers. Each assistant district parole supervisor oversees half the officers and ensures that the parole officers' casework is up to standard.

How an office distributes its caseload is up to the district parole supervisor of that office. Some caseloads are officewide, such as electric monitoring, and some can be as compressed as a particular set of addresses in a neighborhood in Jersey City. Discretion is given to each office to find the best operational structure for its specific area, optimizing local resources. What is effective in the City of Passaic might not necessarily work in Clifton. Each community has its own needs and issues that affect how parole officers do their job.

In Jersey City, the staff designed a program of cooperation with the Jersey City Police Department. This program segmented caseloads to certain geographic areas of the city that were aligned to local precincts. Using mapping programs, the caseloads were charted and each officer knew exactly where he or she was supervising. Both the parole officer and the local neighborhood task force police officers, who are specially trained and interact with residents, businesses and the local community, went on home visits together. This made the police aware of the parolees in their precinct as well as the supervising officers.

This program had a lot of success in the areas of cooperation, warrant enforcement, information-sharing and public safety. At the same time, inroads were made to the faithbased community and local service providers since the parole officers became more familiar with all the agencies operating in their geographic area. Information-sharing and cooperation were essential for this program's success. None of this could have been accomplished without the hard work of the parole officers on the street who developed the necessary relationships with police, courts, religious organizations and service providers. This was a shining example of the supervisory team of the district parole supervisor and the assistant district parole supervisors letting go of the reigns and allowing the officers to go out and develop a program from the ground up. The entire office and agency benefited by trusting and nurturing the officers' instincts to try something new and to work to make it succeed.

In other districts of the state, officers and supervisors developed programs that would benefit the parolees and communities in their specific areas. The cookie-cutter approach to supervision programs and standards goes only so far toward building a successful program. The local needs of the population and the resources in a given community are paramount when developing any new partnership or program. Flexibility is essential when attempting any new endeavor.

Staff Empowerment

The classic question is whether organizational change came from the top down or the bottom up. The reality is that change comes from both directions. If management or line staff are totally resistant to change, then it will not occur. But for any organization to evolve, especially one that deals with people's behavior as its only product, change is mandatory. For an agency to continue to be relevant, it must adapt to constant change or it will be left behind; worse yet, it will lose funding and be disbanded.

During the past several years, parole has been influenced by such issues as sex offender treatment, new technologies such as electronic monitoring, and a public that is demanding safety at the risk of eliminating parole and similar community programs. Add these developments to the fight for budget allocations that are now eyed in the context of homeland security and change and adaptation to the new landscape are mandatory. This change may come from outside, and the agency must adapt to it. Is it not better to be in front of the wave rather than be covered by it?

Most employees in the field of parole/community corrections feel that there is a better way of doing business if only someone will just listen to them. One of the major responsibilities of a manager is to encourage employees to propose new ways of operating and to give them the opportunity to develop these ideas. As long as legally mandated conditions of parole are met, such as home and office visits, treatment requirements, and other special conditions, then is it not in everyone's interest to give officers the flexibility to try some new ways of supervision? Ideas such as accountability sessions, in which a parolee's activity for the past month are reviewed by his or her officer, a reverend, police official and social service coordinator, are an example. In this setting, problems can be addressed by all in attendance and solutions can be found in unison by all the concerned parties. This way, the parolee is offered options to explore - other than returning to prison - that not only help him or her, but also maintain public safety. In this setting, the supervisor offers support and assistance to the officer but does not take control of the situation, as the final decision is based on a group consensus.

The supervisor must be willing to give up some control while, at the same time, the officer must be willing to accept the responsibility to take some alternative action. Conversely, if the officer has a new approach to a case, then a supervisor might be willing to allow some flexibility since the officer should be the case expert. The last thing an officer needs is to go in for a case review with some ideas to share, and instead, be told by the supervisor to do A, B and C, without even being allowed to offer input based on his or her experience with the case. Also, the officer should not discount the supervisor's past experiences as useless input since most likely, the supervisor was also a street caseload officer and can share some relevant suggestions with the officer. Many times, the supervisor is looking out for the officer's well-being and is protecting him or her by insisting on a certain course of action, even if the officer does not see the plan behind the request.

Conclusion

For true organizational change to occur, especially in the context of parole, it must be a mutually agreed upon endeavor. If change is mandated from above, it will not be perceived as being in the best interest of line staff and may be resisted. If change comes only from the bottom, it will be viewed as a revolution and will be sabotaged from the supervisory elite who operate an agency. For change to truly be both effective and relevant, it must evolve from a mutually agreeable process in which it is needed and warranted by both parties. The level of organizational trust between the parties must be at a high level and should not be allowed to diminish in the event of a crisis, which occasionally takes place in any agency.

Trust takes time to develop and can be destroyed very quickly, especially when an organization is attempting new ideas that might often be viewed as rocking the boat of the entrenched bureaucrats who operate as the protectors of the flame of an agency. Therefore, change must be explained very carefully to all members of an agency so that there is no disenfranchisement taking place that would undermine the entire program in the long run. Any agency attempting organizational change must do so in the public eye, where there is little room for error and much room for blame if something goes wrong. The public is the all-important stakeholder in this process and must also be brought along in a respectful manner since it will be expected to pay for this program.

Finally, parolees must be informed of what is expected of them and also what their obligations are in any change since they are the most affected party of any organizational change. It is common sense to inform them that on certain occasions, a police officer might accompany the parole officer on home visits. This way, when a parolee sees a police officer at his or her door, the parolee does not assume he or she is getting arrested. Parolees will be the biggest beneficiary of any worthwhile change, thus, it is a must to keep them in the loop.

Finally, true organizational change can be a great benefit to an agency. For it to be lasting and meaningful, all the players involved - staff, supervisors, stakeholders, the public and the funding authority - must be on the same page, moving in the same direction for the betterment of all.

AUTHOR_AFFILIATION

Charles J. Binder is an assistant district parole supervisor at the New Jersey Division of Parole in the Newark office. He is on the American Correctional Association's Parole Committee and can be reached at cjbinder@juno.com.