Framing Organizational Reform: Misalignments and Disputes among Parole and Union Middle Managers

Abstract

Any time organizations undertake change processes there are questions about mobilizing support for the change (Vallas 2003). Two essential factors for mobilizing support are (1) how organizational change is framed by both the organization and its employees and (2) whether or not the change is framed in a way that aligns in any meaningful way with actors' interpretations. This article considers middle managers as first-line interpreters of organizational policy changes and offers a look at their patterned response to reform mandates. Middle managers' interpretation of changes in organizational policy or practice provides vital information for workers about how the reform fits with larger organizational and personal goals. Using data collected in three years of ethnographic fieldwork with parole personnel in California during correctional reform, I argue that organizational and union middle managers' differing definitions of, and solutions for, policy reform create an outlet for intraorganizational frame misalignments and disputeswith the potential for restricting or halting change.l apo_355 1..31

Discourses of Mass Probation: From Managing Risk to Ending Human Warehousing in Michigan

“…Rather than a tight (or non-existent) coupling between discourses and practices, dominant institutional narratives relate haphazardly to on-the-ground changes and macro-level supervision outcomes. In addition, as other scholars have demonstrated, much of this gap is explained by the continued power of front-line staff and managers to interpret and enact these new mandates (Cheliotis 2006; McNeill et al 2009; Rengifo, Stemen, & Amidon 2017; Robinson 2002; Rudes 2012). Thus, we must study institutional discourses and practices in tandem , rather than seperately.…”

“…McCorkle and Crank (1996) argue that departments adopted “organizational ceremonies … to demonstrate to a political constituency that they could relieve prison crowding, control crime, and provide adequate punishment to offenders,” (3) while changing little about the daily routines of probation supervision. Ethnographic accounts across countries show that parole and probation officers in the 1990s through the 2010s resisted the push to become “waste managers,” and instead continued to articulate rehabilitative logics (or a social work orientation) and selectively implemented actuarial tools to reinforce their own judgement (in the U.S., see Bayens, Manske, Smykla 1998; Lemert 1993; Lynch 2000; Rudes 2012; Werth 2016; for European countries, see Bullock 2011; Hannah-Moffat, Maurutto, & Turnbull 2009; Robinson 2002). However, in the U.S., massively expanding caseloads throughout this period meant that resources were stretched thin, particularly for treatment-oriented services, and revocation rates increased precipitously (Caplow & Simon 1999; Lynch 2000).…”

Trying to Restore Justice

“…Change in bureaucracies is hard, as Lipsky (1983) taught us decades ago. Correctional culture is notoriously difficult to change, in part because of its fundamental mission of community safety and control (Freeman, 1999; see also Rudes et al, 2011); modifying the culture to allow for more meaningful human interaction, recognizing offenders' capacity for change, and restoring offenders within the system may seem counter to the primary goal of control (Rudes, 2012).…”

“…This shift to a more social-psychological orientation presents some interesting twists. First of all, as Rudes (2012) has documented, cultural changes among frontline correctional staff can be slow and taxing. As respondents explained, correctional officers are among the most cynical about offenders' prospects for change.…”

“…Thus, they experienced some tension between the helping function and the policing function of their jobs (see also Rudes, 2012;Rudes et al, 2011).…”