Soaring Caseloads Threatening to Swamp the U.S. Probation System

A tattered green binder on Diego Cruz’s desk nearly bursts with the well-worn criminal histories, drug records and personal details of 30 rapists, robbers and car thieves.

Next to that probation binder stands another. And another. And another.

Six overstuffed books in all represent the 170 convicted criminals Cruz is expected to steer through the obstacle course of crime and drugs toward the life of a respectable member of society.

“We have to do so much with so little for so many,” Cruz said. “At times, it gets pretty hairy.”

Dramatically rising probation caseloads across the country have left probation officers and criminal justice experts wondering how much tighter the system can be stretched before overwhelmed probation departments no longer can properly supervise offenders--and protect the public.

From 1986 to 1992, the average probation caseload increased from 100 to 124 offenders for each agent, according to the Criminal Justice Institute. Researchers said the number has continued to rise since then.

Nearly 3.1 million adults were on probation in 1995, a 182% increase over the 1.1 million on the rolls in 1980, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The huge caseloads have the probation system beyond the brink of disaster, says Carl Wicklund, director of the American Probation and Parole Assn., which represents 25,000 parole and probation officers across the United States and Canada.

“The disaster’s happening,” he says.

Two decades ago, Dick Wertz and his colleagues in Maryland’s parole and probation departments frantically appealed to the state Legislature for emergency funds when caseloads grew above 35.

Now some of the most overcrowded systems in the country have nearly 300 offenders assigned to each probation officer.

“Out of desperation, the better-run departments have had to go to a triage system, where they in effect concentrate the resources they do have on the offenders that need it most,” says Wertz, senior national director for field operations at Justice Fellowship, which works to reform the corrections system.

Why the explosion in numbers? In this get-tough-on-crime era, too many people are being arrested for crimes that would never have been prosecuted in the past, said Eric Lotke, a research associate at the Alexandria, Va.-based National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, which examines alternative forms of punishment.

“The same person who would’ve gotten in 1980, ‘Go home and shut up, you stupid kid,’ now gets jailed for disorderly conduct,” Lotke says.

Increased drug arrests and efforts to relieve prison overcrowding also pushed up probation caseloads. And the probation programs, generally viewed as “soft on crime” punishments, rarely get support from government officials when it comes time to allocate state funds, Wicklund says.

Though probation rolls continue to grow, the percent of corrections money going to probation, parole and related services plunged to 11% in 1990 from 17% in 1977.

“Probation and parole is at the dirt end of the criminal justice system, and by under-funding it we’re endangering the public safety,” Wicklund says.

Reliable statistics on the number of people under supervision who commit new crimes do not exist. Even stable recidivism rates would mean a large increase in crime, because of the rising caseloads, Wicklund says.

“It seems that every time somebody commits murder, they’re on probation while doing it,” Lotke says. “It seems that every time somebody commits some scary crime, they’re on probation while doing it. Well, of course they are--everybody’s on probation.”

Probation officers dealing with low-risk offenders could handle as many as 100 cases if the officers are just pushing paper on the cases and never actually have to see the offenders, Wicklund says.

Cecil Shamberger, 55, was no paper pusher. He was expected to take drug tests from clients, make court appearances, visit them in their neighborhoods, and help them kick drug habits and find jobs.

In his 15 years as a Philadelphia probation officer, he watched helplessly as the number of cases his binders held grew from 100 to the nearly 250 he handled before he was transferred out of the general supervision division.

Shamberger worries whether the huge caseloads leave offenders--with drug addictions, emotional problems and no job skills--without the treatment they need to build productive lives.

“The more time that you can spend dealing with people and helping them with their problems, the less dangerous they are going to be,” he says.

The daily fight to balance their responsibilities as law enforcers, social workers and administrators often left Shamberger and Cruz, 45, both low-level union officials, struggling against the frustrating feeling that they could have done more.

“When the caseloads are high, how much time can we dedicate to a person?” asks Wendell M. Waties Jr., head of the probation officers’ union here.

Large caseloads are not unique to big cities.

A report on the probation system in Minnesota in the early 1990s warned of agents burdened with as many as 400 cases. Some agents working in groups to supervise offenders had caseloads as high as 1,200 each.

Probation officers in some rural areas with smaller caseloads may be under even more strain than officers in major cities, says David Altschuler, principal researcher at Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies.

In Philadelphia, agents can spend a day visiting more than a dozen clients who live within blocks of each other. In rural areas, where offenders can live hours apart, field visits are nearly impossible, Altschuler says.

Everyone agrees that a raw number of caseloads does not necessarily reflect the burden on agents or the type of attention ex-cons receive. Low-risk offenders often need to check in with an officer only periodically to confirm vital information.

“It can be done efficiently, particularly if they are using computers and call-in monitoring,” says Mary Shilton, a vice chairwoman of the Corrections and Sentencing Committee of the American Bar Assn.

But many programs are starving for funds for important drug treatment programs and domestic violence services, she says.

“In most cases, it’s not so much the caseload that’s the problem,” Shilton says. “It’s dedicating the resources to where they should be, to intervention at the front end before the person is ready for the pokey.”