Humanities Homework Help
University of West Georgia Adequate Funding for Criminal Justice Mandates Questions
Question 1:
One cause of governmental shortfalls is that of unfunded mandates. Criminal justice agencies may be presented with government requirements or legislative mandates but not be provided with adequate funding to meet those requirements. How should the criminal justice system address unfunded mandates?
Question 2:
Discuss the budgetary advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing or privatizing certain positions or functions (such as psychological evaluations of new applicants to an agency) versus having these functions performed by in-house personnel.
Student:
The first and most obvious way the criminal justice system can and should address unfunded mandates is by distributing their budgets accordingly. What I mean by that is over the years we have seen police departments not plan their spending out and abuse the budgets given on items and necessary. An example of that is the New York Police Department had complained about not having a higher budget but also less than five years ago they were in the process of signing a $94,000 contract for robot dogs. Things like this are what causes departments to feel underfunded when funds are not used according to basically what’s most important. Citizens also tend to forget that the police budget is not the only amount of money that they receive,departments receive grants, donations, traffic ticket funds, and money that is seized in a drug bust or also used towards that department. An example of money being seized and used incorrectly is the Illinois police Agency using $1 million that they were granted on motorcycles and cars. Not having someone to check and balance the funds and the way that they are distributed is also a major cause for not only missing funds but incorrectly distributed funds. The best way to address unfunded mandates is to have someone check and balance the funds that are distributed within the budget, no citizens are going to want to give police departments higher budget if we are shown on a consistent basis the budget is not being utilized correctly.
Oh there are many advantages there are also a vast amount of disadvantages if the government were to outsource positions. Advantages to outsourcing positions is its ability to access a larger amount of talent. When outsourcing happens the government is able to look at more talented people with the hopes of finding a specialist. Another advantage is the ability for work to be completed at a faster rate. Outsourcing also allows private businesses achieve goals faster then a government offices. Though with these pros the cons can create more choas. Some cons to outsourcing is the government not being able to fully supervise the work that needs to be completed. This can cause alot of issues escially when combined with the fact that the government will have to spend time training employees and teaching an abundance of people at once what laws they must follow with the contract.
