Guidelines for Staffing a Local Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee.

摘要

This guide describes for county administrators and other local officials why staff is needed, who becomes good staff, how many staff persons are needed, what the costs are to develop a staff and how staff can be funded, where staff can be found, how the best applicants can be selected, where staff are best housed in the system, and how staff can be trained and evaluated. The guide also offers practical advice for planning staff by describing important activities to do when starting in the position, major roles and responsibilities, and activities to perform as the criminal justice coordinating committee (CJCC) identifies and resolves systemwide issues. Many local jurisdictions that have formed a CJCC to function as the forum for coordinating the policies, programs, and operations of city, county, and state criminal justice agencies and for managing limited system resources have quickly realized that the committees effectiveness to recommend changes or make decisions that have a high chance of success is very limited unless the committee has the data and information that it needs to guide its decisionmaking. When local officials do not have local data and information on cost-effective and evidence-based practices, they tend to make decisions based on anecdotes, in response to sensational cases, or that are politically charged. When the committee has criminal justice planning staff who work solely on the committee members jointly agreed-upon initiatives in a neutral and objective manner, the committee finds that it is greatly empowered to address any issue, whether long-standing (e.g., how to more effectively deal with repeat offenders) or short-term (e.g., how to reduce the size of agencies or programs because of budget cuts without creating system imbalance).