Technical skills: Specialized knowledge or expertise exhibited by a supervisor.
Human skills: The ability of a supervisor to work with and motivate employees.
Conceptual skills: The ability of a supervisor to analyze and diagnose complex situations.
RIGHTS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EMPLOYEES
As public employees, criminal justice employees are guaranteed rights as defined by law. In addition, oftentimes these rights are also expressed through labor agreements with unions. It is not our intention to provide a thorough discussion of employee rights, but instead to provide the basic rights guaranteed to criminal justice employees by virtue of their employment. These rights directly impact the supervision and evaluation of employees. It can be said that these rights define, in part, the context in which criminal justice administration occurs. Every criminal justice administrator has to consider these rights in the day-to-day management and leadership of their organizations.
Most employee rights come from specific pieces of legislation designed to address a specific concern. The major pieces of legislation that are central to criminal justice organizations include the following:
Fair Labor Standards Act: This act defines minimum salary provisions for both public and private employees. It even has specific sections for police officers and firefighters. The intent of this piece of legislation is to make sure employees have access to additional pay and benefits when they work more than the standard 40 hours per week. This act has additional provisions that define how and when pay and benefits must be increased to match the service provided.
Section 1983: This piece of legislation provides opportunities for employees to sue employers for any deprivation of constitutional rights. It has been employed by police officers and corrections officers in lawsuits filed against police departments and correctional organizations.
Equal Pay Act: This act provides compensation to employees who believe their wages and benefits are not the same for similar type of work. It has been used by women in both police and correctional agencies who believe they are paid less even though their work activities are the same as their male counterparts.
Age Discrimination in Employment Act: This act is directed toward employees who are older than 40 and protects them in all phases of their employment: hiring, firing, receiving benefits, and other general conditions of employment.
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990: This major piece of legislation defines and provides similar opportunities for those persons with disabilities as those persons without disabilities. This piece of legislation has made a profound impact on criminal justice organizations because it now requires affirmative actions on the part of criminal justice administrators to remove barriers from employment within their agencies. One of the major impacts of this piece of legislation has been increased public accessibility to police departments and correctional institutions.
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): This act provides an employee, under certain conditions, the right to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period to address family and/or medical concerns. The law stipulates the conditions under which FMLA can be used by employees and affects not only the employee but family members as well. It provides leaves of absences to care for oneself and those in the immediate family. It is most commonly used by women who have recently given birth, but it can be used under any condition that makes the employee unable to work or perform assigned duties.
Taken together, these pieces of legislation define, in part, the context within which criminal justice administrators perform their duties. These legislatively created laws do not cover the full panoply of rights and benefits that are provided to criminal justice employees, but they do reveal the major or primary laws that impact criminal justice administration. In addition, it must be stated that much of what guides the personnel and evaluation of employees is not only found in these laws but in labor agreements that take on the full force of law as well. It is easy to see within this context the importance of legislation and employee rights in the evaluation and supervision of criminal justice employees.
SUMMARY
Understand the difficulty in arriving at goal consensus within criminal justice organizations.
· ■ Criminal justice organizations have many goals and these goals oftentimes contradict and conflict with one another. This makes it difficult for goal consensus within criminal justice organizations.
Comprehend the importance of organizational structure to employee supervision.
· ■ Organizational structure plays a major role in how employee evaluation and supervision will occur.
Know the differences between the human service approach to employee supervision and the traditional model of employee supervision.
· ■ The two primary models of employee supervision within criminal justice organizations are the traditional model of employee supervision and the human service model of employee supervision.
· ■ The traditional model of employee supervision stresses the importance of rules and regulations and organizational control, while the human service model of employee supervision emphasizes both employee goals and organizational goals with less centralization, fewer and more clearly defined rules, and less bureaucracy.
Understand the difficulty in implementing a human service model of employee supervision within criminal justice organizations.
· ■ Criminal justice administrators will face multiple challenges when trying to implement a human service model of employee supervision within criminal justice organizations, for example, conflicting goals, competing interests, and fiscal and organizational constraints.