Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists

Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists typically perform the following tasks: • Prepare and maintain case folder for each assigned inmate or offender. • Gather information about offenders' backgrounds by talking to offenders, their families and friends, and other people who have relevant information. • Interview probationers and parolees regularly to evaluate their progress in accomplishing goals and maintaining the terms specified in their probation contracts and rehabilitation plans. • Discuss with offenders how such issues as drug and alcohol abuse and anger management problems might have played roles in their criminal behavior. • Supervise people on community-based sentences, such as electronically monitored home detention, and provide field supervision of probationers by conducting curfew checks or visits to home, work, or school. • Investigate alleged parole violations, using interviews, surveillance, and search and seizure. • Recommend remedial action or initiate court action in response to noncompliance with terms of probation or parole. • Arrange for medical, mental health, or substance abuse treatment services according to individual needs or court orders. • Develop liaisons and networks with other parole officers, community agencies, correctional institutions, psychiatric facilities, and aftercare agencies to plan for helping offenders with life adjustments. • Administer drug and alcohol tests, including random drug screens of offenders, to verify compliance with substance abuse treatment programs. • Inform offenders or inmates of requirements of conditional release, such as office visits, restitution payments, or educational and employment stipulations. • Participate in decisions about whether cases should go before courts and which court should hear them. • Write reports describing offenders' progress. • Conduct prehearing and presentencing investigations and testify in court regarding offenders' backgrounds and recommended sentences and sentencing conditions. • Arrange for postrelease services, such as employment, housing, counseling, education, and social activities. • Provide offenders or inmates with assistance in matters concerning detainers, sentences in other jurisdictions, writs, and applications for social assistance. • Develop and prepare packets containing information about social service agencies, assistance organizations, and programs that might be useful for inmates or offenders. • Develop rehabilitation programs for assigned offenders or inmates, establishing rules of conduct, goals, and objectives. • Recommend appropriate penitentiary for initial placement of an offender. • Assess the suitability of penitentiary inmates for release under parole and statutory release programs and submit recommendations to parole boards.