Any time organizations undertake change processes there are questions about mobilizing support for the change (Vallas 2003). Two essential factors for mobilizing support are (1) how organizational change is framed by both the organization and its employees and (2) whether or not the change is framed in a way that aligns in any meaningful way with actors' interpretations. This article considers middle managers as first-line interpreters of organizational policy changes and offers a look at their patterned response to reform mandates. Middle managers' interpretation of changes in organizational policy or practice provides vital information for workers about how the reform fits with larger organizational and personal goals. Using data collected in three years of ethnographic fieldwork with parole personnel in California during correctional reform, I argue that organizational and union middle managers' differing definitions of, and solutions for, policy reform create an outlet for intraorganizational frame misalignments and disputeswith the potential for restricting or halting change.l apo_355 1..31

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The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) reforms correctional institutions via administrative mechanisms and represents a major shift in both correctional policy and workplace practice. Using qualitative data within six prisons in one U.S. state, finding suggest that staff view PREA as an administrative, safety, and cultural burden, which creates a misalignment of institutional logics. Rather than seeing themselves as central to eliminating prison sexual misconduct/violence, staff see PREA as interfering with their “real” custody/control work. This misalignment has major implications for the productive implementation and use of PREA and the broader shift to administrative rather than legal processes for institutional reform.

Background Alcohol and opioid use disorders are common among adults under community supervision. While several medications (medication assisted treatment or MAT) are FDA-approved to treat such disorders, they are underutilized with this population despite established effectiveness at decreasing substance use. This paper examines how community correctional agents’ understanding of addiction and views of MAT influence their professional actions regarding addiction medications. Methods A total of 118 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with community correctional agents taking part in the CJ-DATS MATICCE implementation study across 20 parole/probation offices in nine US states. Using grounded theory methodology and an iterative analytic approach, issues of role perception, views of MAT, current treatment referral and community supervisions practices were explored. Results Agents often had limited autonomy to make direct treatment referrals, regardless of their views of MAT, as they were required to follow court orders and their organization’s policies and procedures. Within some organizations community correctional agents held sufficient autonomy to make direct treatment referrals, with agents struggling to reconcile their desire to support their clients who needed MAT with concerns about the abuse potential of opioid agonist medications. Viewing MAT as a “treatment of last resort” was counterbalanced by the view that it was an effective evidence-based practice. Agents described how MAT impacted their ability to supervise clients and how their knowledge and understanding of MAT was directly influenced by watching their clients who were successful or unsuccessful on MAT. Even those agents who were more accepting of MAT were largely unsupportive of it long-term use. Conclusions Community correctional agents’ views of MAT were influenced by their understanding of addiction as well as their experiences supervising clients receiving treatment with medications, but whether or not MAT referrals were made was not always within their control.

By conceptualizing street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) as the ultimate policy makers, Michael Lipsky (1980) focused attention on the interaction between citizens and the state at the organizational front lines. In subsequent years, research on SLBs provided significant insight into the interactions of SLBs and citizens. In particular, scholarship has focused on the inherently autonomous nature of street-level work and the discretion these agents of the state possess. Work in this area has traditionally relied on teachers, social workers, and police officers as sources for empirical study of how formal and informal social structures influence the use of discretion by SLBs. Recent scholarship, and coverage of New York City's stop and frisk policy, has renewed interest in the role that SLBs play in constructing justice for the citizens they encounter. In this review, we consider the street-level-bureaucracy scholarship and articulate how insights from this literature inform our current understanding of investigatory police stops, such as those stemming from the stop and frisk policy in place in New York.