Duties of a Probation Officer free essay sample

The Daily Duties of a Probation Officer Reggie Haag Everest University Have you ever wondered what the daily duties of a Probation Officer are? Well I am going to tell you what some of them are in this paper. But, first let me give you a brief history on what made me pick this topic. When I was 20 years old I got into a little bit of legal trouble and was put on probation for two years. When that happened I thought that my life was over. But, my probation officer told me that as long as I followed what she told me to do that she could help me get my life back on tract. She made one of the worst times of my life not so bad by working with me every step of the way. So that is why I chose to become a Probation Officer. When I become a Probation Officer my responsibilities are going to be: 1. Casework, 2. Enforcement of probation and 3. Investigation amp; report. Now that you have heard my reasoning on why I want to become a Probation Officer what do you say we get into the first group of responsibilities? The first group of responsibilities is Casework. When I was doing my research I found a big list of daily duties that a Probation Officer has to do. So now I am going to put them into the categories that they belong in. The First duty that fits into this category would have to be: keeping in contact with community groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Good Will and the Salvation Army. The reason that a Probation Officer has to keep in contact with these kinds of places is because the person who is on probation may need help with being an alcoholic or drug addiction or they may need help finding a place to stay or finding some food or they may need some counseling. Another daily duty that falls into this category would be for the Probation Officer would be to stay in contact with local churches and local businesses that may have some work that needs to be done so that the people who are on probation can do their community service hours to satisfy the court and fulfill one of their conditions of probation (Echie,2007). Now that we have gone over the first category let’s get started on the next one. This one is called Enforcement of probation. The first duty that falls into this one would be arresting the person who is on probation for violating the conditions of their probation. Another thing that would fall into this category would be having the person do a drug test to make sure that they are staying clean from any illegal drugs or alcohol. The Probation Officer also monitors the persons desire to stay on probation and get rehabilitated ( Department of Corrections). The next thing that would fall into this area would be that they would bring the probationer in front of a judge to scare the person back to where he or she would get back to fallowing the rules or tell them that they have to go back to prison. Now that we finished the first and second categories let’s get started on the final one. The name for this one is Investigate and report. This category is the biggest one of all of them. The first duty that I am going to list is the Probation Officer has to do is a presentencing interview for the courts to see if the prisoner is a candidate for probation. Then they give the results of the interview to the courts so that the judge can decide whether or not the prisoner can be put on probation. Another thing that the Probation Officer has to do is interview the victim and the family and friends of the person who gets put on probation. Once that is done every so often the probation officer has to make a report and turn it in to the courts so they could get an idea of the probationers progress. The next thing that they do in this category is to have weekly or bi-weekly or monthly meetings with the probationer to find out how they are doing and to collect there restitution payments ( Job description. et). In this research paper I have gone over some of the daily duties of a Probation Officer. We looked at three different categories of the duties of a Probation Officer like Casework, Investigation and report and last but not least Enforcement of probation that I will have to do when I become a Probation Officer. I think that it will be a lot of work to do but I also think that I will be up to the challenge. I hope that I have given you a little more insight into what it takes to be a Probation Officer. REFERENCES: Probation Officer Job Description amp; Care Opportunitieshttp://www. jobdescriptions. net/legal/probation-officer/ The Roles And Duties Of The Parole Or Probation Officer In The Criminal Justice Field by: Kenneth Echie, (2007) http://www. articlecity. com/articles/legal/article_1037. shtml Examples of Duties and Responsibilities http://fldocjobs. com/paths/cpo/duties. html