Cook County Probation Officers Propose Policy Solutions

The Illinois Policy Institute was recently invited to meet with a group of Cook County Probation Officers, who offered common-sense policy solutions to fix their trouble-plagued department.

 by Lee Williams

There are 43,000,000 reasons why taxpayers should be outraged about the current practices within the Cook County Adult Probation Department, as it’s become a department where doing nothing is the norm.

It’s high time to fix things, the probation officers say, so the taxpayers get some value from the $43 million they pump into the department each year. The officers are very cognizant of who ultimately pays their salary.

The Illinois Policy Institute was recently invited to sit down with a group of probation officers who are concerned about where their department is headed, to put it mildly.

There were officers from various units within the department, with different duties and responsibilities. There were supervisors and employees of different ages and races, with well more than 100 years of combined experience. Every one of them said they’d be fired if their names were used in this story.

The officers know how to fix their department. They created a list of policy and procedural solutions—a template for change. Their solutions could save millions of taxpayer dollars, but more importantly, could better protect the public from the convicted felons who were sentenced to probation rather than prison.

Their ideas follow:

Testing and evaluation: The department should test new job applicants, conduct oral interviews, create an eligibility list and hire according to merit, the officers say—a process already in place for decades at most law enforcement agencies. Currently, there is no such practice within the probation department. Prospective employees are usually evaluated according to their clout, after completing only a written application and submitting letters of recommendation. As a result, the officers say the department has become an “employment agency,” and a “dumping ground” for political hires. Testing, interviews and evaluations should also be used for promotions, and for officers seeking to transfer to one of the department’s specialty units, which offer a five-percent increase in pay.

Task Force Participation: Cook County Probation Officers have been invited to participate in several task forces throughout the region. One invitation to join a federal task force could have come with a check for $500,000. In addition, several federal and state agencies have offered to provide free training to the probation staff. All of these invitations, and the funds they could offer to the cash-strapped department, have been rejected by the Acting-Chief Probation Officer.

Supervision: Supervisors say they can’t supervise. They receive little or no support from management, especially if recommending discipline to an employee of another race. The employee’s ability to equate discipline with harassment, supervisors say, so often impedes management that some have given up. This practice would end if management would support their disciplinary decisions, they say. Similarly, although all of the officers that met with the Institute were union members, they say their unions are out of control. They blame their own unions for the department’s inability to rid itself of staff who are not qualified or capable of doing their job. The supervisors said current collective bargaining agreements have rendered them unable to remove an officer for cause, regardless of the seriousness of the offense.

Policies: The Institute recently obtained a copy of the department’s 1,000-plus page policy manual. Most are poorly written. Many contradict each other. All should be rewritten. The three-page use-of-force policy, which is supposed to dictate when an officer can use deadly force, merely references a strategy provided by a use-of-force trainer—a vendor. There is no mention of the sanctity of human life, or the reasonableness standard built into most use-of-force policies. There is nothing that specifies how a post-shooting scene should be treated, who should conduct the investigation, or what should be done with the officer. By comparison, the three-page policy covering the use of the department’s bulletin board, and the four-page policy governing use of the department’s library are clearly written.

Asset Forfeiture: Currently, when probation officers participate in an investigation with other agencies, and homes, cash and other valuable property are seized and ultimately taken through the civil legal procedure of asset forfeiture, all of the agencies split the proceeds except the probation department. The Cook County Probation Department has no asset forfeiture protocol. The officers say the department is missing out on its share of millions of dollars, which could help alleviate its current budget woes. The officers are already doing the work. The department is just missing out on its fair share. Any talk of asset forfeiture has been rejected by the Acting-Chief Probation Officer.

Arrest and Detention: The Cook County Probation Department has no clear arrest and detention policy, which should address how and when an officer may take someone into custody. Its absence is a symptom of a much larger problem. As with most probation departments across the country, there is a unique dichotomy of missions: should the officers act as police or social workers. In fact, the officers say their duty should be seen as a unique hybrid of the two. Their senior managers cannot seem to understand, they say, that there is a certain law-enforcement aspect to the job. A clear and concise policy should spell out when an officer should make an arrest, whether an outside agency should be contacted, and how the offense should affect the probationer’s status. Over the years, this confusion by senior managers led to the infamous “Vampire Memo,” which stripped the officers of much of their authority when they’re conducting vital curfew checks and searching for contraband in the homes of convicted felons, including sexual offenders. The memo states: “Officers shall not enter a residence unless invited to do so.”

Judicial Support: All of the officers say certain judges don’t want to be bothered after sentencing a felon to probation. If an offender violates his probation and is brought back before the court, certain Cook County judges do little more than put the culprit back on probation—regardless of the seriousness of the violation. Other judges are poorly informed about the department. Some are not aware a probation officer can make an arrest. The officers say it is the responsibility of the chief probation officer to work with the chief judge to alleviate the problem and garner judicial support through education. This, they say, is not being done.

Warrant Unit: When an offender who is not in custody violates his probation, a warrant is issued for his arrest. There are thousands of them. Who, the officers asked, is responsible for serving these warrants and taking the probationers back into custody? No one. A poorly written policy states it is the responsibility of the Cook County Sheriff to serve probation warrants. However, the Cook County Sheriff’s Department has thousands of active warrants of its own. Probation warrants, the officers say, often go unnoticed. The offenders are free to roam the streets. They’re arrested only if they happen to be contacted by a law enforcement agency, which runs their name through a computer and sees the active warrant. The Cook County Probation Department should create its own warrant unit and clean up the backlog decade-old warrants. Many of these wanted offenders, the officers say, are only caught after the reoffend and victimize someone else.

A Culture of Accountability: There is little accountability within the Cook County Adult Probation Department, unless word of a problem leaks out. The officers who met with the Institute came armed with horror stories: a case load officer who interviews a client who reeks of marijuana but takes no action, an officer who documents that they have conducted curfew checks throughout the city even though they never left the building, a sex offender who’s only checked once or twice a month even though the court has ordered daily checks, or a specialized unit that is armed and assigned to conduct field work, even though its officers rarely leave the building. Members of this unit, the officers say, which hasn’t made an arrest in more than a decade, all receive five-percent more pay. The officers say a total shift in culture is needed—a new way of thinking. To shift to this culture of accountability, the department must institute new policies and new standards and mete out discipline if they’re violated.

Consultant: In the mid-1990s, the department hired a probation consultant and gave him complete access to its facilities and staff, and free reign to investigate its practices. The consultant had decades of experience with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. His report, which cost thousands of taxpayer dollars, was chock-full of valid suggestions, time-prove remedies and sound policies. None were adopted. Instead, the report was shelved. The officers hope another consultant could be retained, and that this time any valid suggestions become adopted.

Why this is important: There is a unique difference between cops and probation officers. Law enforcement is merely the entry point for the criminal justice system, a gateway of sorts. There’s not much time for counseling or social work. Contact with the offender is brief and ends shortly after arrest. Probation officers can spend years with an offender, molding and shaping their behavior, teaching them how to become a taxpaying member of society, rather than someone who preys upon the public. They’re both cops and counselors. Despite the departmental challenges, which are legion, the probation officers often succeed. Their clients complete probation and do not reoffend. These were the war stories they shared over a table in Chicago—a far cry from the usual cop stories I’ve heard or told. They were most proud of guys who completed their sentence. The officers furnished letters they’ve received from their former clients. The letters speak for themselves:

“…What I learned about adult probation is that when you get in trouble on the streets of Chicago you have to go through the department like you’re the victim so they can make you pay for the mistakes you made so you can grow and learn from them or you will end up like one of those guys in a 6×4 cell and like an animal or something. So I’m going to go to school, get my associates degree or my bachelor and do real estate after I graduate. Sometime later in life there will be a family, but I thank you for helping my through my probation…”

“… Well, I’ve got to say if it wasn’t for me being on probation I don’t know where I would have ended up or how I would have ended up. So that’s why I thank probation for helping me out. It helped me out in so many ways by giving me a chance to see my daughter being born. It also helped me to get out of drugs, if it wasn’t for that I would have not been able to save money and provide for my daughter the stuff I have been able to buy her. I got to say if I wasn’t on probation and they giving me curfew, I would have been in and out of bars and getting in a whole lot of trouble. So that’s why I give thanks to my probation officer for helping me out in so many ways that I didn’t think I could get help in. I just got to say that probation officers are not as bad as they say to be. I had the coolest probation officer ever…”

“… I realize I have never been a father. My shorty came to visit me with my girl and she just took one look at me and said I didn’t care because I would never change. I’m telling you all this because there’s no one else I can trust. I got no friends. I wanted to let a real man know how another man feels…”

“… The program really made me a better person. I don’t miss going out to bars and clubs, and I don’t really miss the drinking. I realize there is more to life than doing these kinds of things. I learned there is more positive things I could be doing. I can spend time with my family and get to know them better. I can say the program did help me, but I hope not to be on it again. The one thing I will do is give advice to people so they don’t have to go through the experience I went through…”

“… One word to described being on probation would have to be ‘hard.’ My lifestyle before probation was really difficult to live. I was gang banging on the street, getting into trouble with the police and not going to school. Gang banging held my time up from school which caused me to drop out. This lifestyle got to the point where I couldn’’t go into other neighborhoods, in result to this bad lifestyle I ended up in jail. After I was in jail, I was given a second chance to be back out in society under one condition, to be on probation. Ever since that my lifestyle has changed in a whole different direction. I am no longer a gang banger. I am attending school to get my GED and working. Putting me on probation was a good thing that has made me and my life better. My probation officer keeps me on the right track by doing home check ups giving me the right lectures in being a better person. [The officer] has been keeping me on a thin string where I have no freedom to do anything bad which is a good thing. All in all probation is doing a good job with me…”