Introduction
Social work organizations form part of the society. Social workers interact with the community on an everyday basis in their attempt to improve the living standard of the people in the society. Criminal justice agencies also play a vital role in the society by ensuring that law and order is maintained.
This is a short essay that analyses the weaknesses and strengths of both governmental and non-governmental social organizations. In this essay, an opinion will also be aired in regard to whether criminal justice agencies should be privatized or not.
Social Work Organizations
Social work organizations are very vital in the society as they assist needy people to access basic facilities such as shelter, providing hostage for children away from their abusive homes, helping the jobless make ends meet among others. Social work organizations can be governmental or private. Both the governmental and private social work organizations have strengths and weakness.
Governmental social work organizations have got much strength with the most profound one being easy accessibility of funds. The governmental social work organizations obtain their funds from the tax payers and thus they can accommodate larger budgets and do not waste time in sourcing for funds; more social workers can thus be employed.
On the other hand, source of funding is a weakness on the part of the private social work organizations as they have to privately source for funds which may take significant amount of time and energy which could otherwise be utilized in carrying out the actual tasks they are meant to. Due to uncertainty of privately raising funds, in most cases private organizations employ limited social workers thus their scope of work is limited (McEntire, 2007).
The governmental social work organizations incur fewer costs by utilizing economies of scale since they are large. In the contrast, private social work organizations can not utilize economies of scale but instead nay suffer diseconomies of scale due to their small sizes.
Viewing the size from a different perspective, the private social work organizations have a chance of being better managed by the virtual that small organizations are easily manageable. This is in contrast to the governmental organizations which are large and may not be managed effectively due to their size (McEntire, 2007).
The governmental social work organizations have access to governmental information which can greatly help to offer helpful and up to date information to the society on various issues. This will make it possible for the government social workers to carry out their duties successfully.
On the other hand, the private social work organizations may not access much governmental information on various issues but can instead specialize in one line, for instance rehabilitation of addicts, where they can offer the best specialized assistance thus being the best in that line (Chapin, 2010).
Criminal Justice Agencies
Whether the criminal justice agencies should be privatized or not has been a contentious issue. There are some agencies which are in the private hands while others are still within the governmental jurisdiction. Private organizations make use of private security to safe guard their property.
The private security agencies have limited scope (Shichor & Gilbert, 2000). I believe that there is a need for some of the criminal justice agencies to be privatized as they are at present while some should not be. Private and governmental criminal justice agencies should coordinate and not view each other as rivals. The court system however should remain solidly in the arms of the government.
Conclusion
Private and governmental social work organizations have strengths and weakness. Ability to easily access funds is a huge advantage to the government social work organizations while at the same time a big disadvantage to the private social work organizations. Some of the criminal justice agencies should be privatized while others should remain within the control of the government.
References
Chapin, R. (2010). Social Policy for Effective Practice: A Strengths Approach. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
McEntire, D.A. (2007). Disciplines, disasters, and emergency management: the convergence and divergence of concepts, issues and trends from the research literature. New York, NY: Charles C Thomas.
Shichor, D & Gilbert, M. (2000). Privatization in criminal justice: past, present, and future. New York, NY: Elservier.