Organizational Behavior Paper

Organizational Behavior

Jerimiah Heter

AJS 534 Week 1

3-4-2018

Dr. Nathan Johnson

Organizational Behavior

        When it comes to organizational behavior in the criminal justice system, the corrections field seems to be the main thought suggested as the prime example. The role correctional officers must play will and power they use to lead the troubled people within the facilities. This is something that must be done with the codes of conduct, rules, and by the law inside the correctional facilities. With principal elements of organizational behavior, how this changes effectiveness of the agency, and lastly include challenges and opportunities that globalization bring to the criminal justice organizations.

Correctional Field

As each corporation requires organizational behavior, some in diverse ways, adjust just what is different from another, that can change due to circumstances. Motivation, job satisfaction, authority, training, leadership, and politics are the basic concepts of organizational behavior. These concepts work together with each other and directly affect the overall rise and fall of the organization. Corporations form a strict code of conduct that is determined by the type of organization as well as the types of people that work within the corporation. When thinking of the field of criminal justice, several agencies create many different organizational behaviors to be used within each circumstance.

“Even among custody staff (i.e., correctional officers) and staff who spent half or more of their day interacting with inmates, support for rehabilitation had a significant positive association with organizational behaviors and support for punishment was not a significant predictor. In addition to the benefits of increased support for rehabilitation, such as better inmate relations, job satisfaction, and lower job stress, the current results suggest that another benefit of increasing support for rehabilitation among staff could result in greater engagement in organizational citizenship behaviors. Correctional administrators should explore different ways to promote support for rehabilitation among staff.” (Citizenship behaviors among correctional staff)

Basic Concepts

Motivation is always necessary within the correctional field for the workers and inmates. Motivating the workers is needed to steer towards professionalism within daily duties and to achieve them adequately. Working within the motivation is job satisfaction, as the loss of interest within the current position could potentially lead to an abuse of power. As correctional officers within a correctional facility hold a large amount of power and authority. Authority that is given by leadership to each officer for the explicit reasoning to control the inmates and follow the codes of conduct. Yet it would take that single, or combined effort of officers, and an abuse of power to cause a serious situation. A type of situation that could lead a correctional officer to become an inmate unless motivation to not do so is essential within the training.

        All correctional officers must go through a thorough background check, drug tests, mental, and physical conditioning that will be used as a guideline on how to react within any given situation. Training correctional officers to react to any given situation and combine efforts within a team-based organization is considered a key asset that must be expressed. Mostly it is to protect each correctional officer from working alone or walking into a situation that could become volatile. This training is most commonly conducted with a large amount of other training officers and within a controlled facility that is to show the effectiveness of the leadership.

Leadership is one of the many types of behaviors and seen as the most important, since it takes a leader that is motivated to help or rally the others in the corrections field. As leaders that are not motivated will not only hinder the training or professionalism of another person within the corporation but could be the cause of greater issues. With good leaders in this field professionalism is needed to perform required duties and hold together those under command, citizens, and inmates. When it comes to volatile situations, having the strength to command, conviction to lead, and projection of absolute authority will be the tipping points between control and anarchy.

“In a time of restricted budgets, true recognition of staff as a resource calls for correctional institutions to be more prudent in developing an environment that promotes staff commitment. Although prior research has examined affective commitment, far fewer studies have modeled the relationship between critical workplace factors and continuance and normative commitment. This study uses three key organizational concepts (job stress, job involvement, and job satisfaction) to explore their differing impacts on the three types of organizational commitment (continuance, normative, and affective). The study found that key workplace and demographic variables had varying effects on each type of commitment. This supports and extends findings from prior correctional studies suggesting that organizational commitment is not only a multidimensional construct but also that the mechanisms responsible for the development of each type of commitment differ. With this in mind, correctional administrators should recognize the need for various strategies to increase different forms of commitment among correctional staff.” (Loyalty, Love, and Investments)