22 Treatment Cases Found to Be Illegally Extended

A Probation Department audit has found that seven of Orange County’s 23 groups offering treatment programs for domestic violence offenders illegally extended the length of their programs beyond their court-approved dates, probation officials said Friday.

At least one of the groups has drawn fire from the Public Defender’s Office for allegedly extending its programs at the expense of court-referred clients, who must pay for the extra sessions. If a group wishes to extend the yearlong treatment, it must first win approval from the court.

Probation Department officials, however, emphasized that the audit found only 22 unapproved extensions out of 5,579 cases examined from the past three years. Another 20 cases were extended after court approval.

“In terms of the magnitude of the problem, I was pleased” by the findings of the audit, Chief Probation Officer Michael Schumacher said. “But I’m certainly not pleased that any individual who was deserving to be released from a program had to go through that.”

Some people convicted of domestic abuse are referred by judges to county-approved programs instead of incarceration, said John Robinson, chief deputy probation officer. The programs offer anger management services and charge offenders up to $50 a session, depending on ability to pay.

The Probation Department singled out one group in particular, the Center for Creative Alternatives, which had extended its programs 11 times in three years, the audit found.

Officials from the center could not be reached Friday for comment.

The results of the audit have spurred probation officials to promise to beef up the department’s monitoring of domestic violence programs, Robinson said.

The department will add two deputy officers to the one-person unit now overseeing the groups, he said.