"Management in the juvenile
justice system is no easy task. Compare the clarity of purpose between a small business
owner and a juvenile probation chief and one finds that the differences are quite
pronounced. The small business owner focuses all attention on the satisfaction of the
consumer purchasing the firm’s goods or services. If the customer is pleased, more
orders will be made and the business prospers. Internally the primary tasks are to keep
quality up, costs down and the bottom line in the black. Success or failure is clear. When
setbacks occur, the business owner can gather staff to hone the firm’s attention to
the customer’s needs and wants, adjust production and soon gauge the impact of the
changes."
"Not so in the juvenile probation department. Here we find a manager
with very diverse customers who often express conflicting interests. Law enforcement
and prosecutorial customers seek expedient incarceration. Defense
customers seek a lenient response. Victims stake a claim for restitution. Offenders
resist intrusion. County commissioners demand budget constraints. Legislators
seek quick fix solutions. And judges remind the probation chief regularly that they
are the only customer that the chief really needs to worry about."
"Beyond customer conflict, the probation chief faces continued debate
over the actual products sought by the juvenile justice system. The product seems to swing
from wielding a dose of sanctions, to providing a therapeutic intervention, to arranging
compensation, to imposing some form of punitive measure. To make matters worse, the
probation chief, for the most part, carries out decisions made by someone else, be that
overseeing the terms of negotiated pleas, or judicial dispositional orders. Thus, the
chief has little authority to make decisions that could bring some clarity to the
situation."
"As to gauging success, with so many competing interests, it is no
wonder that the word 'success' is rarely ever heard around the halls of a juvenile
probation department. There may be isolated discussions about a probationer or two who
'made it'. However, in most places the criticism generated by the collection of customers
is so persistent that many probation chiefs have become conditioned not to proclaim
'success'. It is no wonder then that many a chief survives by following the cardinal rule,
'Regardless what goes on around here, just make sure you keep the judge happy.' Thus, we
find a system managing to survive rather than managing to succeed."