Skip to main content

Want to reinvent probation? Do it right [CorrectionsOne.com]

Probation was a concept dreamed up in the mid-1800s by a Boston boot maker who saw the folly of throwing children into jail for petty crimes. If he could give them a better chance outside of jail and show them the way toward a successful adulthood, he figured, then everyone — the kids, their families, their neighborhoods, the taxpayers, the overcrowded jails — would be better off. And if it worked for children, wouldn't it work for adults too?

But John Augustus' notion that probation's mission is to rehabilitate has sometimes been forgotten. By the beginning of the 21st century, many probation departments — with their networks of juvenile halls and camps — became tough youth prisons that copied or even exceeded the abuses that adults experienced in county jails. In some Los Angeles County juvenile camps, rogue probation officers engaged in sex with the youths they were supposedly supervising. On the adult side, some probation officers chafed at their rehabilitation role and wanted to be more like state parole agents, who carry guns and are oriented more toward “violating” parolees — catching them violating drug tests or other parole conditions in order to send them back to prison or jail.



[For more of this story go to http://www.correctionsone.com/...obation-Do-it-right/]

Add Comment

Comments (0)

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×