What in-house administrative options may be used by probation/parole officers to address violations, prior to filing for revocation? Also, what types of violations would these option be used to address?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Administrative interventions are ways the officer attempts to gain compliance for a resistant offender and include oral/written reprimands, staffings, motivational interviewing techniques, and a directive (Taylor & Martin, 2006). Administrative interventions are limited because the initial conditions and length of probation are clearly judicial functions, and these include restitution payment schedules and the maximum number of drug tests to be performed. The probation officer's job is merely to ensure that these conditions are followed. However, the distinction between a judicial "condition" and a probation officer "directive" is unclear (Barklage, Miller, & Bonham, 2006). The response depends on the severity of the probation violation, the offender's predefined risk level defined by the risk/needs assessment, and the offender's assaultive history.
According to Jones and Kerbs (2007), most officers preferred to use in-house intervention techniques with probationers who made little to no effort to find employment, who failed to report, or who did not appear for community service work, and for those who tested positive at the first alco-sensor test, indicating the offender had ingested a substance with alcohol. Officers favored more formal interventions with the courts for repeated positive drug tests coupled with failure to attend treatment. How to respond to resistant probationers is not entirely the officer's decision. A substantial number of officers surveyed felt some kind of external pressure (supervisory, prosecutor, etc.) to go against their wishes by either withholding formal actions when they wanted to file or taking action when they wanted to work longer with the offender (Jones & Kerbs, 2007). Regardless of these pressures or perceptions, probation officers must be very careful not to impose new or different conditions without first obtaining court approval (Barklage, Miller, & Bonham, 2006).