Description
Rubric and milestones attached
CJ 550 Final Project Guidelines and Rubric
Overview
The final project for this course is the creation of an organizational assessment and recommendations report.
The study of organizational assessment and program evaluation is a growing subfield within the field of criminal justice. As professionals in criminal justice
systems are often faced with dynamic environments and high expectations of performance, citizens demand accountability, and politicians challenge the
effectiveness of current policies. Many criminal justice organizations are employing assessment or policy and planning personnel to assess their organization’s
effectiveness in meeting their stated goals or mission. These skills in assessment are vital to the development of leadership roles in police agencies, corrections,
and the court system. Given the contemporary issues surrounding the police use of force, prison escapes and violence, and court personnel overstepping their
roles, the performance of criminal justice organizations has been questioned by the general public, government, and media. It is vital that professionals
continuously assess a criminal justice organization’s performance and ensure the organization is meeting the goals of its established mission statement in a
dynamic and changing landscape, to build effective public service organizations.
In the summative assessment, you will assess the performance of a subdivision of a criminal justice organization from the provided case scenario. You will begin
by examining the structure and mission of your selected criminal justice organization to identify the specific goals and responsibilities of the subdivisions in
relation to the performance of the overall organization. Next, you will select a specific subdivision in the organization on which to base your performance
assessment. You will assess the effectiveness of the subdivision in reaching the organization’s established goals, utilizing measurement strategies to identify the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the organization. Based on your assessment, you will create recommendations for the organization to
improve its performance, as well as recommend communication strategies to distribute relevant information to the appropriate individuals within the
organization.
The project is divided into four milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final
submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Two, Four, Five, and Seven. The final submission is due in Module Nine.
In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes:
Analyze criminal justice organizational structures and policies for informing the development of methods to improve organizational performance
Determine appropriate organizational assessment strategies to acquire valid and reliable data for measuring the effectiveness of criminal justice
organizations in meeting their established goals
Analyze how internal and external factors impact the effectiveness of organizational performance in criminal justice organizations
Develop evidence-based recommendations to improve the performance of criminal justice organizations in meeting their established goals
Propose strategies to communicate evidence-based recommendations to diverse audiences within criminal justice organizations for informing
continuous improvement of organizational performance