JustAdvice

Dear Pro­ba­tion Officer,

Our son was on pro­ba­tion for a while and we really had our ups and downs with him. The pro­ba­tion offi­cer was very atten­tive, and our son even­tu­ally straight­ened up, but we’re not sure exactly what brought him around. We’ve talked about it a lot and we don’t see where any­body did any­thing mirac­u­lous. Was it just dumb luck? We’d sure like to hear what you would say about that.

Dear Par­ent,

We often have no idea what, exactly, brings suc­cess because there is no sure-fire for­mula when deal­ing with people.

One thing, how­ever, is always true. Peo­ple suc­ceed on pro­ba­tion only when they are will­ing to do what­ever it takes to turn their lives around. Your son would not have been suc­cess­ful had he not made the effort. We don’t know what brought about his change of heart, but it may have been some­thing you or the pro­ba­tion offi­cer said or did. In fact, you and the pro­ba­tion offi­cer prob­a­bly did make a dif­fer­ence. The role you, and we, play in an offender’s life is many-faceted and can hit the mark even when we aren’t aware of it.

At times pro­ba­tion offi­cers are sim­ply infor­ma­tion bro­kers. That can take the form of, “If you don’t attend coun­sel­ing, you may go to jail.” We can also be police offi­cers, as when we take out the hand­cuffs and say, “You’re under arrest because you didn’t go to counseling.”

Suc­cess­ful pro­ba­tion offi­cers resem­ble suc­cess­ful par­ents in that we try to moti­vate, teach and guide. We can be men­tors, advo­cates or cheer­lead­ers too, depend­ing on the needs of the offender. How­ever, no mat­ter how much good advice and encour­age­ment offi­cers give, they can­not do another person’s think­ing for him or her.

Con­trary to pop­u­lar opin­ion, we do not hold pro­ba­tion­ers’ lives in our hands, because they still have free will. If we had the power to change peo­ple with­out their per­mis­sion, every­one would be “cured” within a week. It’s up to them and, if they fail, they take the blame. Of course, when they suc­ceed, they get the credit.

Offend­ers can choose to abide by their Court orders or not, yet pro­ba­tion offi­cers are often blamed for the fail­ures. That isn’t entirely fair because, even when our super­vi­sion is, by def­i­n­i­tion, suc­cess­ful, some­times the pro­ba­tioner isn’t. As with par­ents, we can do every­thing right, and still end up with a case that is a fail­ure. It’s also pos­si­ble to do every­thing wrong, and end up with a suc­cess. That’s why it some­times feels like just “dumb luck.”

You may never know what, exactly, turned your son around. Hope­fully he will tell you some­day, if he knows. It may have been a word or a spe­cific inci­dent, but some­thing hap­pened that made him want to change his life, and rein­forced, for him, the fact that he was respon­si­ble to make those changes.

The gen­eral key to offend­ers’ ref­or­ma­tion seems to be a will­ing­ness to decide on some­thing bet­ter, and to real­ize they actu­ally can, and should, do some­thing about it. That is usu­ally the point where they finally accept help from oth­ers, even from a par­ent or a pro­ba­tion officer.