TQM AND PRISON MANAGEMENT

TQM and Prison Management

TQM and Prison Management

Introduction

Total Quality Management (“TQM”) is a management philosophy was originally developed by American statistician, W. Edwards Deming after World War II and its principle are then put forward by various researchers such as McCormack (2002 43-46). Such principles comprise the Deming triangle, Juran Trilogy, concept of zero defect and Kaizen approach etc.

Discussion

Total refers to every process, every activity and every people of the organization whereas Quality is to satisfy or exceed all customers' requirements. The key principles of TQM comprise customer and stakeholder focus, participation and teamwork, and process focus and continuous improvement. TQM gained great popularity in the private sector since the early 1980's. Today many organizations in public sector also embark on TQM journey.

Given the statement of the Governor of prison, the Governor questions on the application of Total Quality on the prison because he thinks that the inmates are unwilling customers and the staffs only need to follow the orders and procedures. Besides, he doubts the contribution of quality to the results. This report firstly comments on assumptions that the Governor has made and demonstrates that his statement is wrong. We will discuss how TQM culture could improve the organization performance. Lastly, it ends by short conclusion that through TQM approach, a high quality of prison service can be established.

Public sector is so special in term of the roles. Whereas those who pay for the services but do not use it. The civil servants, who work on behalf of society, are not paying but have power to decide the policies. Similarly in the prison, the inmates take the role of customers and consume the services directly, but grudgingly and of course without payment.

The time had come for a fresh, new, and energetic start. With our shared commitment to quality and our background and training in TQM, we were ready for a new vision. Although Chief Pocock had earned a strong reputation as a polished and adept administrator, he expressed a desire to leave behind a legacy of excellence (Port Carey and Kelley 2002 66-72). By honouring the past but thinking in the future tense, he had already begun this legacy in 1995 by building a “new age” direct supervision facility.

Although challenged with inmate crowding and tight budget constraints, he saw these challenges as opportunities to succeed. Based on varying levels of organizational concerns, the management team surveyed staff by holding “town hall meetings,” having informal discussions, and forming core teams, always including labour union representatives, to identify major problems (Waterman Peters & Phillips 2000 14-29).

that led to them being achieved through improper ways.

The fundamental causes also included over-optimism relating to Internet technology and careless government regulation. Looking at the prevailing giddiness, pension funds, venture capital firms and mutual funds eagerly financed new telecom and dot-com start-up it would be wrong to think that WorldCom is basically a victim of its own dishonesty. Even before the accounting scandal, the company was on the edge of bankruptcy. By the old mythology, the Internet and the "new economy" assured a rising stock market and anxiety-free prosperity (Bowen & Lawler 2002 ...