Effective Communication

Effective Communication

CJA/304

November 4, 2013

Effective Communication

Like any other bureaucratic entity, criminal justice organizations such as law enforcement agencies and civil courts are complex organizations consisting of a multilayered departmental structure and hundreds, if not thousands, of employees with various levels of authority and access. The composite nature of the criminal justice system itself, in which various branches of the system overlap and extend across organizational boundaries, necessitates a highly organized method of facilitating communication between individuals and across agencies. There are both formal and informal channels of communication which are utilized by segments of the criminal justice system, including intra-office memoranda, policy directives, and departmental meetings, and each method is crucial to the delivery of messages, the recording of information, and the deployment of resources. One of the most commonly used and standardized resources used to simplify and standardize communication within the criminal justice system is the official report – a highly structured document which typically follows an industry-accepted template – and reports are used for a number of important reasons. Experts on the role of communication the administration of criminal justice agree that “recording information to ensure that it will be available in the future is one purpose … (and) operational and administrative reports are also an expeditious way to share information with other people without you having to be there” (Miller & Whitehead, 2011). By examining the various barriers which exist to effective communication, one can develop a better understanding of the importance that proper report writing and interpersonal exchanges of information holds within this foundational aspect of civilized society in the modern age.

One of the most glaring barriers to effective communication within criminal justice organizations is...