Administrative Policy and Procedural Changes

A policy is a formal statement of a rule or principle that members of an organization must follow. Each policy addresses an important organizational mission or operation. A procedure defines for members of the organization how to carry out or implement the policy. In short, a policy is the "what" and the procedure is the "how to."

Legislative reforms can significantly alter important organizational missions and thus change the way an organization operates thus serving as the impetus for administrative policy, and procedural changes that can reduce DMC. In the State of Washington, for instance, three pieces of legislation, enacted to establish standards for decisionmaking at certain stages of the juvenile justice process and also requiring state agencies to monitor and report annually on how county juvenile courts handle minority youth, led to major administrative and procedural changes in the state’s juvenile justice system that were intended to influence DMC. They included the following: adoption of standards for prosecuting juvenile offenders; development of experimental programs implementing prosecutor guidelines to reduce racial inequality in the prosecution of juveniles; a requirement that state agencies supervising youth adjudicated delinquent or convicted in criminal court report annually on minority representation; and establishment of local juvenile justice advisory committees to monitor and report annually on proportionality, and review and report on citizen complaints regarding bias or disparity within local juvenile justice systems (Hsia, Bridges, and McHale, 2004:15–16). The specific legislation can be found in the DMC Technical Assistance Manual, 3 rd Edition, available at http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/dmc_ta_manual/.