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Parole officers often serve the public as a link between prison and the general public. Parole officers and make their careers in criminal justice systems by supervising criminals released from jail before their actual sentence date, or criminals who have been sentenced in other ways, such as community service or offenders who are awaiting their sentencing. The parole officer job description is to help these offenders find education, counseling, jobs and housing so they can become fully rehabilitated, contributing members of society. Parole officers are, in essence, “adult babysitters” but sometimes work with juveniles as well. They try to keep their offenders drug-free, alcohol free and out of trouble.
In addition to their role a watchdog for offenders, parole officers must write reports for judges to inform them and recommend an appropriate sentence for each offender. Oftentimes, parole officers will testify at pretrial and parole board hearings to help explain their reports. If an offender violates their court-ordered sentence, it is up to their parole officer to investigate that violation and report it appropriately.
In the United States, probation officers can work on the city, county, state level; wherever there is a court of competent jurisdiction. The federal system of parole was abolished in 1984, but there are still a small number of parolees still being supervised that were sentenced before 1984. Federal offenders are generally paroled by court-martialed military service personnel or the U.S. probation officers.
Parole officers have law enforcement powers, and are classified as peace officers, and if so, they must attend a police academy and complete many of the requirements for becoming a police officer as part of their training and certification. Typically, probation and parole officers do not wear a uniform, they generally dress in business or casual attire and are usually issued a badge or some other form of credentials. In some cases, parole officers may carry concealed weapons and generally have full police powers.
Probation agencies have a loosely based command structure, just as police department to. They are usually headed by a Chief Probation Officer or Director and the chain-of-command flows to Deputy Chief or Assistant Director, then to Supervisor or Senior Probation Officer, then to the line probation officer.
As a parole officer, you can carry a general caseloads where you deal with offenders who are convicted for a variety of reasons, or you may hold specialized caseload positions, and work with specific groups of offenders such as sex offenders, offenders with severe mental health, substance abuse, or violent histories. A parole officer’s work load is heavy; and you may have an average of 70 to 130 active cases. This line of work can be dangerous. Obviously, working with paroled convicts, their friends and families, this can be a dangerous situation.
In some states and localities, probation departments have a specialized officer position known as a surveillance officer or field supervision officer. These officers have full probation officer authority, but their purpose is generally to serve as the eyes and ears of a probation team on specialized caseloads where the probation team can’t be everywhere all the time. Surveillance officers usually attend the same training academy and generally only require a two-year degree or high school diploma with public safety experience.
