Reaching Out to Society’s Castoffs : Probation: Volunteers participating in a 6-month-old program in O.C. help make sure offenders toe the line. They do it, they say, ‘so things might be better’ in our communities.

It’s a Monday night, and Mark Emfinger, who normally would be home watching a football game, is working--but not at his regular job as a sales representative for an insulation company.

Tonight he has volunteered, as he puts it, “to visit felons in bad neighborhoods after hours.”

For eight hours a week for the past six months, Emfinger, 42, has made surprise visits to halfway houses, businesses and private homes throughout northern Orange County. His mission: to ensure that offenders in the county’s Alternative Confinement program are abiding by the rules that allow them to serve their sentences outside a jail cell.

The probationers so far have kept to the rules, says Emfinger of Cypress, who has even knocked on doors at 6 on a Sunday morning. Felons, he says, particularly those rousted from bed, “are really amazed the (confinement) program is so well monitored.”

What has helped make such thoroughness possible is the 6-month-old Volunteer Probation Officer program, operated by the Orange County Probation Department.

The volunteers, who must commit to at least 20 hours of work a month, help deputy probation officers by interviewing prisoners and probationers, working with teen-agers in drug treatment, questioning taggers or doing clerical work.

The volunteer probation officers have signed up for a variety of reasons. Some are retired peace officers, some hope to use the experience to launch a career in law enforcement. The 11 men and nine women satisfied background checks, psychological evaluations, oral interviews and 40 hours of classroom instruction last April.

The volunteers are steered away from contact with high-risk offenders but have all the authority of deputy probation officers, except the power to make arrests and sign court documents, says Susan Nash, a deputy probation officer and one of two program coordinators.

None of the volunteers have come into any dangerous situations, in part because the program is designed so that they work under the direct supervision of full-time deputy probation officers, says Jerry Schiller, program coordinator. (Emfinger is an exception, having worked as a reserve deputy sheriff in Los Angeles County during the 1970s.)

“Rarely do even the deputy P.O.s have problems,” said Schiller, who added the volunteers would be covered by workman’s compensation insurance in case of injury. “We train them adequately in terms of safety, and most are in controlled environments, an office environment. Any (volunteers) going into supervision areas have two-way radio training.”

The program is modeled after similar systems in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The second class of volunteers is due to graduate later this month, and the department is now accepting applications for a third class, which will begin early next year.

Emfinger knows that his area of focus as a volunteer probation officer--ensuring that felons obey the rules of alternative confinement--is not for everyone.

“The nice thing about (the program) is that they tailor the work to our different personalities and backgrounds,” Emfinger says.

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Tiffany Johnston, at 23 the youngest of the volunteer probation officers, says the sick and needy already get their fair share of attention from volunteers and that criminals are neglected.

“Everybody already goes to convalescent homes,” Johnston said. “If we . . . help this aspect of the community, get them jobs and paying taxes, things might be better.”

Johnston, of Anaheim, hopes to begin law school next year and ultimately work as a child advocacy lawyer. She works full time as a group counselor at Orangewood Children’s Home in Orange, and, as a volunteer probation officer, spends seven hours a week ensuring that probationers are fulfilling their work furlough program.

“When they go on job searches, I follow up and go to that McDonald’s to see that they really did talk to the person that they said they did,” Johnston said. “Or if they’re scheduled to be at a certain bus stop waiting for a bus, I may check to see if they’re there.

“It’s exciting, because you’re dealing with people you normally wouldn’t deal with. You find out they’re basically like you and me--they just made the wrong choices.”

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John (Barney) Conway, 63, who coaches basketball at the Anaheim YMCA, continues his work with juveniles as a volunteer probation officer. He oversees eight 12- to 17-year-olds who are in a six-month work probation program.

For about nine hours each week, he goes to offenders’ homes to explain the terms of their probation, completes paperwork and verifies school attendance with administrators.

Although it is officially discouraged, Conway recently gave a lift in his car to a probationer.

“You don’t do it to everybody, but he’s only 12 years old, and he had 25 hours of work he had to do,” Conway said. “I didn’t want him painting out graffiti, because then he’s mixing with older kids, gangs. So I drove him over to the YMCA, where he can do stuff like clean windows.”

Despite society’s need for increasing numbers of volunteers to aid the sick, handicapped and homeless, the volunteer probation officers defend their work with criminals.

“I know it’s a cliche, but if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” Emfinger says. “We’re trying to turn around offenders so they’re no longer a burden on society. They tend to kid themselves and think (their criminality) only affects them, but it’s a cancer that spreads faster than other illnesses.”

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Probation officials say they are exceptionally pleased with the competence and commitment of this first graduating class of volunteer probation officers. The 20 were gleaned from 110 original applicants, many of whom are now taking the second training course.

“Usually, volunteering is a crap shoot--you never know if you’ll get the commitment,” said coordinator Nash. “But these people in three months made over a 1,200-hour contribution. Some of them have switched their areas of emphasis, and we encourage that because we like to keep the volunteers happy.”

David Rice, whose day job is in marketing and public relations, created his own volunteer niche. He became a lay expert on the probation department’s functions and gives presentations to large companies, such as Fluor Corp., to whip up support for the volunteer programs. Another volunteer, Nina Bui, puts her bilingual skills to work by serving as a translator for Vietnamese-American juvenile offenders.

At a recent meeting at the Santa Ana headquarters, the volunteer probation officers--after witnessing a skills demonstration by Dingo the Dope-Sniffing Dog--swapped tales from the field.

The efficacy of the program became evident as retired lawyer H. Frank Swimmer, 61, recited statistics from his jailhouse interviews with offenders who were about to begin their probation periods.

Swimmer has made interviews his focus during the three days each week he volunteers, in part because deputy probation officers lack the time to do face-to-face interviews to explain the probation process to all inmates. Prisoners who don’t get the interview receive a notice saying they are to appear before a probation officer within 72 hours of their release from jail, Swimmer said.

“Generally, between 20% and 30% of people released without an interview fail to show up to begin probation,” Swimmer said. “But of the 24 inmates I interviewed who were released between May 25 and Aug. 25, all 24 showed up. It shows that people do respond if you establish rapport and discuss what probation is.

“The misconception of what probation’s about is enormous. They have no idea. They see probation like another parent (looking) for a reason to send them back to jail. A lot are very hostile toward me, but by the time I leave, they’re smiling.”