Probation Agency Courts Volunteers to Ease Caseloads

Seven teenagers, most of them admitted gang members, encircle Sam Ho inside a cold concrete recreation room at the Joplin Youth Center, a secluded correctional school in the tree-studded rolling hills of southern Orange County.

Ho--a volunteer counselor with the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., a social and cultural service group--is far from feeling threatened. Instead, his presence provokes the young men to openly talk about their criminal activities, which range from auto theft to assault with a deadly weapon and gang violence.

Although his three-hour visit to the youth center was once considered uncommon, probation officials now welcome Ho and others like him on a weekly basis.

Ho is one of a handful of volunteers aiding the Probation Department, which was hard hit by the bankruptcy last year. While tightening their financial belt, probation officials say they are turning to community service groups and public agencies for help in alleviating the mounting caseloads.

“People look at the bankruptcy and say it really doesn’t affect them. But when you look at the overcrowding of juvenile facilities and a staff that is getting burned out, then ultimately, the society and public safety is going to be affected,” Chief Probation Officer Michael Schumacher said.

In the wake of the bankruptcy, $9.3 million was slashed from the Probation Department’s overall budget and a total of 126 positions were lost, including 10 of their 35 probation officers.

Other casualties included training classes for 25 new probation officers, some staff at treatment and crime prevention programs and the Juvenile Diversion Program, a 13-year-old intervention service that monitored about 2,000 minor offenders annually.

The result: caseloads ballooning, troubled youths falling from the wayside and a system groping for resolutions.

“We’re not able to build more facilities, the needed counseling programs for these kids aren’t out there, and there are few job referrals for these kids to find alternatives,” Deputy Probation Officer Steven Sentman said. “We’re now forced to become all of these roles.”

Since the December 1994 bankruptcy, the remaining probation officers have absorbed almost twice as many cases this year. Before the bankruptcy, most probation officers were handling an average of 60 cases. Now, they average about 100, said Noel W. Brooks, probation director of juvenile supervision.

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The bloated workload has forced the department to shift more attention on repeat offenders and, in so doing, unintentionally neglecting a portion of youths that commit less serious crimes.

“There are two populations we target, kids who present a risk to themselves and their community, and the kids who commit minor crimes and only need treatment,” Brooks said. “Now, we’re forced to concentrate more on the risk population, and many of the other kids are not being served. It’s not that we don’t want to work with them, we simply do not have the time.”

Some probation officers say they regretfully run fewer house visits and must spend more time in their office to complete paperwork.

“Many of my clients don’t have any transportation to come to my office,” Deputy Probation Officer Kimi Nguyen said. “Although it’s more effective to go out to the homes, I just can’t afford the time.”

Officials attribute the prevalence of youth offenders in Orange County to the growing juvenile population. While the under-18 population continues to expand, services and resources for young offenders remain stagnant, they said.

At Juvenile Hall in Orange, for example, there are 374 beds currently housing 450 children, Schumacher said. The overcrowding of youth facilities has forced officials to shorten sentences, swiftly shuttling youths through correctional programs. Hasty releases may turn these youths into hard-core criminals before they turn 18.

“When you lose the ability to deal with the problem early on, your alternative is to deal with them later when they are worse,” Schumacher said.

Over the past six months, most teens sentenced to correctional schools such as Joplin have served on average only 35 days. Before the bankruptcy, the average stay was 120 days.

“If we can get a kid for a full 90 days, we can do a lot more for them by pumping them into our academics and treatment programs that will help them bring their credits up and make more of them eligible for job opportunities when they leave,” said Joe Salcido, director of Joplin, an all-boys facility that houses about 60.

“But when a kid stays for only one month or 1 1/2 months, it makes the work environment more stressful for the staff and kids here because we need that month just to get to know them, diagnose their moods, assess their needs,” he said. “By the time we understand their circumstance, they are already gone.”

Some youths circulate through the correctional school faster than their paperwork does.

“Sometimes the kid comes and goes before his transcript from the regular school even gets to us,” said Tony Chicas, a deputy probation officer at Joplin.

Ted Price, the Department of Education’s director of correctional and alternative schools, said they are “collaborating with a variety of public agencies in the county, including social services, mental health and probation to find ways to keep these kids involved in an education program.”

About 50 volunteer probation officers also help in bolstering the offenders’ education by acting as mentors, tutoring them and ensuring they attend their classes, officials said.

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A coalition called the Probation Community Action Assn. in 1995 helped launched nine crime prevention and education programs. They include generating book donations for the Juvenile Hall library, a tattoo removal project, securing money for needy families of probationers and organizing retreat camping trips for high-risk youths.

Joint efforts provide various job training, social and rehabilitation programs, Price said. And clustering these services with the alternatives schools makes them more accessible to the at-risk students.

“The traditional school schedule doesn’t work for all kids,” Price said. “So the community becomes a village and it includes some public agencies that help the kids be productive.”