Transcripts

DAN GUNDERSON: About 140,000 convicted criminals are currently under some kind of supervision in Minnesota. The offenses range from sexual assault to drunk driving and disorderly conduct. Some have spent time in prison. Most have not. In Moorhead, Probation Officer Marcie Green works with adult felons. Green says she's seen an increase in the number of repeat offenders.

MARCIE GREEN: Going back 10 years, pretty much most of our cases would have one offense or one file. Now it's not uncommon at all to see multiple offenses or they have two or three felony files.

DAN GUNDERSON: Greg Potvin supervises the Department of Corrections' Moorhead office. He says caseloads are steadily increasing.

GREG POTVIN: Our caseloads are growing, I think, about 5% a year right now over the average the last three or four years, and we've not had any new staff. I know best practices says that you need to focus your resources on the highest level offenders. And so that's what we're trying to do, is we're trying to make sure that they get a high level of supervision.

DAN GUNDERSON: Probation caseloads vary around the state. But the average caseload of adult felons is about 100. The recommended caseload is 60. More offenders are spending more time on probation, not because crime increased, but because the legislature has increased penalties for many crimes, including longer times on probation. Greg Potvin says, despite the caseload, probation officers are not allowed to work overtime.

GREG POTVIN: Even as a supervisor, I've never gone home at the end of the day and not had something else I couldn't do. I mean, I think it's pretty much a job that you could work at 24 hours a day and not get it all done.

DAN GUNDERSON: While caseloads are rising, state budget cuts eliminated more than 100 Minnesota probation officer positions last year. Budget cuts also wiped out most of the training money for probation officers. Mark Carey is a former deputy commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Corrections. He still works for the agency. But he's also president-elect of the American Probation and Parole Association. He says, budget cuts are eroding the probation infrastructure.

MARK CAREY: When you see the budget cuts cutting training dollars to make our staff more effective, that's a problem. When you take out probation officers so that the caseload goes up and they have less time to work with that medium and high-risk offender and the extreme high risk in terms of surveillance, that's a problem.

DAN GUNDERSON: Carey says the budget cuts mean less information is collected and shared across the Justice system. He says probation officers sometimes don't understand a judge's sentencing practices, and judges sometimes don't have good information on what happens to the people they sentence. Carey says one judge described sentencing as golfing in the fog.

MARK CAREY: You walk up to the tee, you put your ball on the tee, and you take a couple practice swings, and then you rear back and you hit that ball with all your might, and it sounds beautiful. It looks beautiful when it goes off that tee, and, as it sails through the air, it goes into a bank of fog. And we have no idea where that ball has landed, and yet we go up there time and time, again, to hit that ball the same way we did before.

DAN GUNDERSON: Carey says judges might be able to make better decisions if they knew what happened to the criminals they sentenced. Carey says, there are many promising new techniques for keeping criminals from falling back into their old patterns. But more intensive probation is time-consuming and more expensive. Carey says most of the resources are now spent on the most serious offenders. But that's only a small percentage of those on probation or parole. He says less serious criminals are slipping through the cracks.

MARK CAREY: Some of those offenders are getting the programs that we need. A large proportion of them are not. And so in my view, that's an area that we really need to focus our dollars on because we can make significant reductions in recidivism, but you've got to drive those caseloads down so that people have time to do that.

DAN GUNDERSON: Carey believes more probation officers on the job could reduce the overall number of repeat offenders by 30% to 40%. Melanie Currier says, it's frustrating when the best tools aren't in the toolbox. Currier is president of the Minnesota Association of County Probation Officers. She says new techniques and therapies are proven successful. But people are needed to run those programs.

MELANIE CURRIER: You know that the programs exist. You know that you either had them, and now you don't, or you've never been able to have them because of funding constraints. And you know they're out there, and if you can get them going in your county, that it would make a difference. That part is frustrating.

DAN GUNDERSON: Currier says, a lack of funding for probation programs will have a long-term effect.

MELANIE CURRIER: When you're losing positions, and caseloads are increasing, you're going to lose some of the programming, and you're going to lose some of the things that go into providing best practices. Logically then, public safety may suffer, and recidivism may increase.

DAN GUNDERSON: Minnesota Department of Corrections officials agree caseloads are straining the probation system. But they say it's not a crisis. Bill Guelker is Field Service Director for the Minnesota Department of Corrections. He oversees the probation system, and Guelker says caseloads can be managed by doing more with less.

BILL GUELKER: I don't want to blow the horn of panic because I think that given what we have, we need to prioritize it. We need to use it. We need to work. We need to work smarter with how we do it. And I think we can keep on moving forward. Matter of fact, I'm absolutely convinced we can keep moving forward with our best practices efforts.

DAN GUNDERSON: Guelker says he's looking for creative ways to bring innovation to the probation system. But he says probation officers often can't try new things if they're already overwhelmed by their workload.

BILL GUELKER: What we have to do is we can't just simply have them-- have the same level of casework that they have right now. We've got to find a way to reduce that so that they have time to do this. That's a huge challenge. If they're given the right tools to make changes, we will reduce victimization in the community, which is, in my opinion, our number one job.

DAN GUNDERSON: The state budget provides funding for 18 new probation officers. They will be assigned to supervise high-risk sex offenders. There's no money to replace the 100 positions cut last year statewide. That means the caseload for most Minnesota probation officers is expected to increase again this year. Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio, Moorhead.