With funding from the U. S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the Center for Innovative Public Policies, Inc. (CIPP) has produced the publication: The Future is Now: Recruiting, Retaining, and Developing the 21st Century Jail Workforce . Primarily developed as a toolkit to help jails address workforce-related issues, this document can also be used to keep funding authorities, policy-makers, community groups, and other stakeholders informed about these critical issues. Preparation of The Future is Now was guided by a national advisory panel of sheriffs and jail administrators representing jails of varying size, location, and organizational structure throughout the country.

Highlights of contents in The Future is Now include:

• Specific strategies, including action planning checklists, to help jail leaders improve recruitment efforts, employee retention and leadership development;

• Discussion of strategic initiatives supported by findings from the landmark National Jail Workforce Survey—the first nationwide survey of both jail administrators and line staff to focus on workforce-related issues;

• Generationally-relevant approaches that recognize expectations and motivational needs of the newer members of the jail workplace;

• Application of relevant workforce data and information from across the country to the specific needs of sheriffs and jail administrators;

• Pragmatic ideas and helpful hints from the field and the literature that can positively impact the jail workplace;

• An annotated bibliography of workforce-related publications providing opportunities for further exploration of these issues;

This project is supported by Grant No. 2007DDBXK172 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

For more helpful information see:

Jeanne B. Stinchcomb and Susan W. McCampbell (2008), Jail Leaders Speak: Current and Future Challenges to Jail Operations and Administration: A Summary Report to the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Center for Innovative Public Policies, Inc., Naples, Florida. http://www.cipp.org/pdf/FocusGroupReport.pdf 

Jeanne B. Stinchcomb, Susan W. McCampbell, Elizabeth P. Layman, FutureForce: A Guide to Building the 21st Century Community Corrections Workplace, U. S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections. http://nicic.org/Downloads/PDF/Library/021799.pdf

Susan W. McCampbell and Paula N. Rubin, “Effectively Managing a Multi-Generational Workforce in Corrections: A Training Curriculum”, National Institute of Corrections, March 2004. http://www.nicic.org/Library/019950

For more project information, or to contribute a promising practice for recruitment, retention, succession planning and/or leadership development, contact Susan McCampbell @ susanmccampbell@cipp.org