Resistance to Change in Criminal Justice
College-Educated Officers in Justice
The criminal justice system, like any other organization, is bound to resist radical shifts in its operational, structure and processes which seek to establish a marked change on its prevailing landscape. Given the controversies surrounding the criminal justice system in the United States, there have been multiple calls for reform which presently manifest in a number of changes that include the encouragement of college-level degree holders’ entry as employees into various institutions of criminal justice (Abreu, 2020). In addition to officer sensitization on human rights and exercising punitive actions for criminal justice employees culpable of abusing their power, the powers that be decided to introduce college-qualified officers into precincts, jails and the department of corrections. Unfortunately, the move to include degree holders as job seekers in a field popularly associated with war veterans and individuals who didn’t go to or complete college has stirred up more resistance and resentment within the forces.
Reasons for Old-Guard Resistance
The resentment of college qualified officers into the criminal justice system is by no means random given that the discomfort of the old guard with the academics are well documented. The estrangement begins with the wage gap that exists between the two groups despite facing the same risks on the job and carrying out similar responsibilities at work. The qualification background for officers on either camp (college, non-college) also plays out in stocking the fires of resistance (Roth, 2019). The difference in wages for policemen who went to college and those who don’t vary from as little as Given that the disciplined forces were considered more skill-oriented than the academic-oriented, entry of academicians into the field makes the old guard uncomfortable, a situation that stirs up resistance to change. Finally, the differences in exposure between the two groups contribute to their various perceptions of the world and increase the resistance to change. While non-grad officers could be war veterans who served in the military at various times, college graduates, in the former’s perception ‘were having fun’. Consequently, they view college-educated officers as fragile and unable to handle the pressures of the job.
References
Abreu, J. (2020). Enacting and Refining Critical Teaching: A Multi-Case Study on Criminology/Criminal Justice Professors.
Roth, G. (2019, September). The New Underemployed, Educated Working Class. In New Labor Forum (Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 88-91). Sage, CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
(, 2020). Retrieved 14 October 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxg3nvA_YRA.