Criminal Justice & the Rule of Law

DHS Unity of Effort

Paul Rosenzweig
Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 2:05 PM
Big news over at the Department of Homeland Security.  Now in its 11th year, the Department continues to be operationally disaggregated into its component parts, with little of the cross-cutting economies of scale and efficiencies of effort that were a promised result of its creation.  Prior Secretaries have tried to tame the process with limited success.  It appears that Secretary Jeh Johnson is going to try again -- and he looks to have a pretty solid plan of action.  That, at least, is the impression I get from his

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Big news over at the Department of Homeland Security.  Now in its 11th year, the Department continues to be operationally disaggregated into its component parts, with little of the cross-cutting economies of scale and efficiencies of effort that were a promised result of its creation.  Prior Secretaries have tried to tame the process with limited success.  It appears that Secretary Jeh Johnson is going to try again -- and he looks to have a pretty solid plan of action.  That, at least, is the impression I get from his memorandum yesterday on DHS Unity of Effort.  It appears that Secretary Johnson is going to try and mold DHS management processes into a more coherent process.  Most notably, the Secretary has suspended development of the DHS Strategic Play for FY14-18, pending a complete review.  For years, I've thought that DHS's biggest problem was its lack of a coherent centralized management structure.  This is a step in the right direction.

Paul Rosenzweig is the founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC, a homeland security consulting company and a Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Mr. Rosenzweig formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security. He is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University, a Senior Fellow in the Tech, Law & Security program at American University, and a Board Member of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy.

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