Abstract
In recent years, there has been a growing emphasis on treating police, courts, and corrections as part of a unified system of criminal justice. While this total system concept has important values, it can oversimplify a complex structure of persons and agencies in interaction with one another. And in the process of that interaction, conflicts arise. Although conflicts can serve positive ends, many of those in criminal justice tend to defeat the achievement of goals of the total system and of its parts.
In order to better understand such conflicts, a conference was held at the School of Criminal Justice at Albany in which probation and police officials were asked to identify types of conflict existing between their agencies. The four types studied were: (1) conflict based on dissensus reflecting differences in values among groups within a system; (2) conflict arising from status and esteem differentials between indivi duals ; (3) operational conflict which is centered in the differences which occur when interrelated agencies seek to serve their own organi zational requirements; and (4) perceptual conflict, the result of distor tions which prevent a clear image of the duties, functions, and purposes of others in the system from being transmitted effectively.
A variety, of resolution techniques are suggested which are specific to kinds of conflict. Alternative methods of a conflict resolution which might be pursued in criminal justice are discussed.
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