Probation office stretched thin
GREENSBORO - Overwhelmingly big case loads and low pay are overburdening Guilford County's probation system, leaving many offenders without direction or supervision and putting the public at risk.
Of the county's 6,185 probationers, 1,219 of them could not be found as of Wednesday, probation officials said.
Just do the math: Each of the 90 probation officers assigned to Guilford County must keep tabs on nearly 70 probationers.
Good probation officers are leaving, tired of juggling heavy case loads and long hours for little pay. Offenders keep committing crimes in a system meant to help them become productive citizens.
And it costs taxpayers when criminals return to an expensive and crowded prison system. And when innocent people are put in danger.
The 2008 slayings of UNC-Chapel Hill student body President Eve Carson and Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato brought problems with the state's probation system to the forefront.
The suspects in those crimes were on probation but had received little or no attention from their probation officers, according to media reports.
State officials maintain that such lax oversight isn't widespread, and local officials maintain that although their office has its problems, it is run well.
Underfunded, overworked
Max Gerald and his assistants in the 18th Judicial District office of the state's Division of Community Correction say many of the problems arise because the probation system is underfunded and officers are overworked.
"It's a cause-and-effect thing here because nobody wants to raise taxes," said Gerald, who oversees probation in Guilford County. "To get where we need to get, (money is) one of the major issues."
Gov. Bev Perdue announced plans earlier this month to deal with a nearly $2 billion budget shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year. Of the proposed cuts, $93 million likely will be cut from crime and punishment programs.
"The ultimate question will be with the worsening economy and the deficit we find ourselves in: How are we going to find the resources to tackle the (probation) problem?" said newly elected state Sen. Don Vaughan. "We need to find a way to stretch our resources to make probation effective."
Vaughan, a local attorney with 25 years of experience, plans to make the probation system one of his priorities in the General Assembly. The state also needs to look at how probation cases are handled in the courts, he said.
"On Monday morning, you can wait an hour to an hour and a half just to get inside the courtroom door because of the volume of (probation) cases in Guilford County," Vaughan said.
"It's overwhelming right now, and I think the Eve Carson case in Chapel Hill was the awakening of the state legislature that the system needs attention.''
A revolving door
Pay is another issue. Probation officers are paid the same statewide. But in urban areas with higher case loads, more court hearings and issues such as gangs, many officers are leaving the job, probation officials said.
"We have officers come in, stay two or three years and get some work experience, and move on to bigger and better things," Gerald said. "It's a revolving door. ... To keep good people, you are going to have to pay them."
On average, a state probation officer with a few years of experience makes about $37,000 a year. A federal probation officer can make about $50,000.
Ideally, Gerald said, he needs 12 to 15 more probation officers in Guilford County and a case load of about 45 to 50 cases each. He would like to see pay start at $40,000 for community-level officers and in the $50,000 range for intermediate officers.
"(Vacancies) put extra burden on the officers because someone has to supervise those cases," said Garry McCluskey, an assistant judicial district manager. "That sort of becomes a piling-on ... that creates undue hardship on the officers we do have."
Keeping track of nearly 70 cases requires time management and priorities, Gerald said.
Each day, probation officers in Guilford County put on a variety of hats when they supervise criminals. They are counselors, supervisors, authority figures, mentors, law enforcement officers and, ultimately, the last chance criminals in Guilford County have before landing in jail or state prison.
With limited time and so many cases to juggle, some offenders don't get the help they need through probation, Gerald said.
"You've got cases with various problems - unemployment, lack of education, housing, transportation and other things - that we try to address," Gerald said.
"To provide the type of quality supervision for each individual case, you have to prioritize your time. If you don't address those needs, that offender will stay in the same environment with the same friends doing the same thing."
For some offenders, probation can be a one-stop shop for the guidance they have never gotten, said Tracy Parr, an assistant judicial district manager.
"It's a reality. We are a referral source. We are a counseling source. We wear a lot of different hats," she said. "We work to teach them there are consequences for the choices they make, and we can help them if they allow us to help them make good sound decisions."
Parr recently received a call from a man she supervised in High Point in the early 1990s when he was on probation for financial crimes.
"He called to say he had a full-time job, was married and had two kids," Parr said. "He said he didn't like me then, but thanked me. Years later, many of these offenders realize we had their best interest at heart."
Missing in action
Another major issue, Parr and others say, is an overall disrespect for the judicial system by offenders who purposely avoid their probation officers.
In December, the News & Observer of Raleigh reported that state probation officials couldn't account for 14,000 of the more than 114,000 probationers they were assigned to supervise.
In Guilford County, nearly a fifth of probationers could not be found as of Wednesday, officials said.
That figure can sound alarming, but Gerald said it's not a case of his office losing the probationers. The majority are people skipping out on probation, and not all of them are violent offenders.
"If that offender changes his address without prior approval by his probation officer, we don't know where he's at and he doesn't make himself available for supervision," Gerald said.
"We cannot supervise an offender if we can't find him."
When a person is assigned to probation, an officer collects addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, Social Security numbers and other identifying information.
If the person cannot be found, the officer checks with employers, hospitals and the jail, McCluskey said. If the person still isn't found, the officer files paperwork in Raleigh identifying the person as an absconder.
Each absconder is entered into the National Crime Information Center used by all law enforcement agencies.
Absconders who fall through the cracks often find their way back to prison for a variety of crimes, ranging from misdemeanor trespassing to murder.
"Nine times out of 10 that's how they get captured - when they commit another offense," Gerald said. "A lot of the times, they get picked up in traffic stops."
The News & Observer series cited 580 offenders who killed someone while on probation since 2000.
Christopher Nathaniel Little of High Point is a suspect in one of those cases. The 19-year-old man was put on probation in October 2007 on a charge of driving with a revoked license, and he absconded a month later, according to court records.
High Point police say Little and two other men robbed and killed Jermaine Quentine Collins in a home invasion on Dec. 18, 2007.
Little was arrested in Augusta, Ga., in January 2008 and now faces murder, kidnapping, burglary and robbery charges. The case has not gone to court.
Another thing making probation officers' jobs difficult is the growing number of juveniles who commit crimes, local officials say.
"Although juvenile and adult probation are working toward a similar goal, we do not have (access) to juvenile records," Parr said. "We may get a 16-year-old offender that has been in the system for years and years, but we aren't given that information.''
An offender's criminal background is part of what determines the level of supervision a probationer receives, but a juvenile with a violent history could get minimal supervision because his record is closed at 16.
"You may have a gang member ... involved in some serious, violent crimes, but because he or she doesn't have an adult history, (he or she) might be assigned to a community-level officer," Gerald said.
Cheaper alternative to jail
The state's probation system is set up to serve two main purposes: to avoid adding people to crowded jails and prisons and to guide offenders back onto the right track, Gerald said.
And probation is more cost-efficient than prison. For each offender housed in a state prison in the 2007-08 fiscal year, taxpayers paid an average of $74.77 a day, according to the N.C. Department of Correction.
The cost of probation, depending on the level of supervision, can range from 83 cents per day for a community service work program to $28.84 a day for a sex offender who requires GPS monitoring.
"People who don't really need to go to prison and make a mistake still can be productive members of society. If they have a substance abuse problem, we can treat that. We can keep them in the community and paying taxes," Gerald said.
"I'm a firm believer that we can't send everyone to prison. The bottom line is that we can't afford it. We are going to (run) ourselves to the poor house."
Chief District Court Judge Joseph E. Turner said he prefers putting offenders on probation to sending them to prison because there's a better chance the offender can become a productive citizen.
"We are never going to build our way out of there being crime," Turner said. "We don't want to put that many people in jail, and we can't afford to."
Turner agreed that more probation officers would be beneficial for the state, reducing case loads and allowing officers to spend more time rehabilitating offenders.
"They would be able to do more mentoring, guiding, counseling, in addition to giving them a strong talking to so they don't repeat as offenders," Turner said. In order to save money on state prisons, you are going to have to put money into those things that keep people out of prison."
Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7077 or ryan.seals@news-record.com
Accompanying Photos
Photo Caption: Don Vaughan, (right) and Tom Carruthers at the Guilford County Courthouse.
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