Quality comes to criminal justice: Reengineering core processes in the courthouse

Abstract

Although the principles and techniques of quality management are increasingly being applied within public sector organizations, most implementations involve processes that are routine and highly structured. This article reports on a public-sector reengineering project that successfully addressed a less structured core process: the efficient use of courthouse facilities and staff in a county's district and circuit courts. The principal focus of the article is the team-based procedure through which standard quality management concepts and techniques were reconceived to permit their successful application in this nontraditional context. The article also describes the results obtained through implementation of the reengineered processes.