California parole agents sound off in response to the following item:
COP KILLER HAD BEEN CONTINUED ON PAROLE LAST MONTH
By Bob Walsh
PACOVILLA Corrections Blog
July 22, 2010
Parolee Thomas Halloran, who murdered a Sheriff’s Deputy in Petaluma shortly before being terminally rehabilitated by an armed private citizen two days ago, had been COPd (continued on parole) in May on a drug beef.
The late and unlamented Halloran had tried to pass a forged script and got caught. He was sentenced to 2 years probation by the trial court and the parole people elected to take no further action against him. I think maybe they guessed wrong on that one.
BOB WALSH ADDED: Any form of conditional release will have failures. Some will be spectacular. If you have rules, the system should follow them. This guy committed a FELONY and attempted to illegally obtain drugs. He should have been rolled up.
I know the system now is biased towards NOT rolling people up except for the most egregious acts. The system pretends to supervise parolees and therefore pretends to preserve public safety. It is essentially dishonest.
We should not bother with the expense of pretense. Why should we drug test parolees if they will not be rolled up for drug use? Why should we have hearings where we will pretend to consider whether or not to roll a parolee up for criminal activity when we know we won’t do so?
J. J. CONROY SAID: Bob, I came to parole from a probation department in 2007. I’ve asked myself the same questions about why drug test, ect. The only outcome is that I’m generating paperwork stuck behind a desk and the parolee is not going to comply anyway. If the parolee doesn’t comply, than I’m gerating more paper work to cover why they didn’t comply. It has consistently gotten worse as each year has gone by with so-called “best evidence based practices” being implemented. It is especially bad now.
I have had case after case of parolees committing new felonies that are deferred to local adjudication over the years. I had one that committed four separate new felonies over a three year period while on parole. The Court kept giving him Drug Court (another joke) and parole deferred each time. This parolee never served a single day of revocation. I have had cases where a parolee has absconded for significant periods of time where we just have them sign an absconders waiver and all is good.
All this just delays the inevitable, which is most will commit a new crime that returns them to prison. CDCR and DAPO [the parole division] have continually stepped on their D%$KS and brought the ultimate demise of DAPO and maybe eventually CDCR.
My last day at work is next Friday as I’m completely fed up with DAPO and the state of California. I’ll spend the next three months with pay due to all those furloughs and PPL days that supposedly saved money. There is still hope that I’ll get that pick slip before I officially retire.
‘5,110 AND A WAKE UP’ SAID: This, gentlemen, is why parole will be a thing of the past in four or five years. If the hand ringers in Sacramento had paid as much attention to public safety as they have to discrepancy reports and STAR/Lit Lab attendance, parole would not be irrelevant now.
They made us jump through all of the hoops that the public demanded to cut the recidivism rate and our thanks is the public believes we’re a failure.
When a parolee finally goes to prison, he/she has failed every possible county diversion treatment program available. When the parolee continues his lifestyle, parole is a failure and Brown wants to give them back to the experts who have had them since juvenile hall?
AND I SAID: I really feel sorry for you guys and I’m being serious. Being part of a program that is nothing more than a joke has to be a real pain in the ass.
When I was a parole agent back in the 1960s, parole really meant something. The only problems I can remember is some of the sissy social worker type agents looking the other way and other agents returning parolees to get rid of a nuisance case. (My case load would have been reduced by more than a half had I returned my nuisance cases.)
As an agent in the CRC program, I was encouraged to work closely with the narcs in Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties. I was also encouraged to conduct surveillance and to make my own investigations of drug violations. As a result, I was able to seize some quantities of heroin by myself and other quantities together with my police narcotic unit friends.
Sure looks like them days are gone forever.
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