Book Description

This report presents empirical data describing the manpower planning currently being done in the criminal justice field and assesses future feasible developments. It provides a basis for further developmental efforts among criminal justice administrators planners, and researchers. The report resulted from Phase I of Michigan State University's Manpower Planning Development Project and is based on information summarized from interviews with nearly 250 people in over 100 agencies and from five questionnaires sent to more than 500 criminal justice agencies. Data collection concentrated in the areas of law enforcement, corrections, State planning agencies, and law enforcement standards and training councils. Findings focus on police and corrections manpower planning, comprehensive systems planning, the role of peace officer standards and training councils in manpower development, and the environment of manpower decisionmaking. One general study finding is that substantial interest exists in the system for increasing the degree to which human resources are efficiently and effectively utilized. Growing external pressures to plan and justify human resource decisions on rational criteria are coming from budget review authorities and from legislative, executive, and judicial bodies. However, capacities and needs for manpower planning vary greatly among agencies and are dependent on such factors as agency size, political climate, and the agency's function in the criminal justice system. Thus, manpower planning development must be tailored to individual agency needs, environments, and capacities. Although many individual data and analytical components necessary to manpower planning exist, agencies have not integrated these components into a coordinated approach to human resource management. Rather, data are collected and analyzed in reference to specific problems. Thus, more integrated approaches to manpower planning should be initiated.