A Probation Officer's View of Effectiveness, (an interpretation of the article "A Probation Officer's View of Effectiveness" by Stojkovic, Kalinich & Klofas, 2003).

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A View of Effectiveness � PAGE �7�

Running head: A PROBATION OFFICER'S VIEW OF EFFECTIVENESS

A Probation Officer's View of Effectiveness

Jolene J Orlowski

Managing Criminal Justice Personnel CJA470

University of Phoenix

Instructor Angela Bradrick

March 24, 2008

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A Probation Officer's View of Effectiveness

Introduction

The question of how one may measure effectiveness is a difficult one because the vagueness and diversity of the word effective makes it nearly impossible to pinpoint success in a general term. It gets even more complex when the effectiveness is measured within the criminal justice system. Because there are so many different levels of effectiveness within these criminal justice organizations, there is never one right way of measuring whether they are being effective or not. Effectiveness must be measured separately by each department, and even each department's divisions, because no one area is going to have the same goals as the others.

To explain this further, the following is an interpretation of the article, "A Probation Officer's View of Effectiveness (Stojkovic, Kalinich & Klofas, 2003)." In this interpretation there will be a description of the issues at hand, whose interests were served within those issues, the theories of effectiveness that represent the renovated solution, and an analyzation of the final outcome.

Interests Served

The originating issue within the article was the 3 weeks of articles that the local newspaper did on how 'ineffective' the probation and parole department was directly related to the recidivism rate of their felony probationers, how the department does not provide any rehabilitation services, and how the departments' personnel allegedly just "sits around the office and drinks coffee (Stojkovic, Kalinich & Klofas, 2003)." Obviously, the newspapers' measures of effectiveness were somewhat incongruent with probation and parole's (P&P) measures. The interests served by the newspapers evaluation of the department...