National Institute of Corrections May 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is soliciting proposals from organizations, groups or individuals to enter into a cooperative agreement for a 12-month, developmental phase of a new initiative, ``Identifying the Characteristics of High Performing Correctional Organizations.'' This project will focus on developing a methodology to allow organizations to build from their strengths to identify and bridge gaps between current performance and optimal performance in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and accountability. Project Goal: The products from this cooperative agreement will be to establish a model, accompanying assessment methodology, and appropriate performance measures that define a high performance correctional agency or system. The model will synthesize the literature about building high-performance organizations into diagnostic tools that can be put to practical use by organizations to understand their business practices and overall performance. The intended user of the tools are local and state operated jails, prisons and community corrections agencies or systems. The intended outcome for this project is to establish a model, assessment methodology, performance indicators, and practical strategies to (1) Develop ways to address agency inefficiencies that result from the lack of a ``holistic'' and integrated perspective; (2) establish a core set of values or guiding principles that agencies can apply to correctional disciplines to enhance business practices; (3) improve organizational performance by assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, resources and threats; (4) prioritize goals and objectives; and (5) contain costs associated with operating correctional agencies and systems. This project will: Define the ``hard side'' of correctional organizations i.e. strategic plan, mission statement, capacity building, policy/procedure etc; their leadership and management philosophy; organizational structure; and other operational characteristics. Identify methods to improve the infrastructure, activities, and outputs of correctional organizations to be better aligned with operational practices, community partnerships, offender reentry and the best use of resources. Identify evidence based and/or best practices. Develop and test tools that can be put to practical use. Develop methods to measure the degree to which correctional organizations are functioning that comprises the actual output or result measured against its intended outputs or goals and objectives in determining performance.