Juvenile Probation: The Workhorse of the Juvenile Justice ...

1 1 Juvenile Justice BULLETINJUVENILE Justice Department of JusticeOffice of Justice ProgramsOffice of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency PreventionDEPARTMENT OF JUSTICEOFFICE OFJUSTICE PROGRAMSBJANIJOJJDPBJSOVCG enerally, Juvenile probation officersare college-educated white males, 30 49years old, with 5 10 years of experiencein the field. Typically the officers earn$20,000 $39,000 per year and receivestandard benefits packages, but not nec-essarily annual salary increases. The aver-age caseload is 41 juveniles. Althoughprobation officers have some arrest pow-ers, they do not normally carry of the typical problems juvenileprobation officers face are a lack of re-sources, not enough staff, and too manycases.

2 Although they chose this line ofwork to help kids, their greatest sourcesof frustration are an inability to impact thelives of youth, the attitudes of probation-ers and their families, and difficulties inidentifying ProfessionWhat Is Juvenile Probation? Juvenile probation is the oldestand most widely used vehicle throughwhich a range of court-ordered services isrendered. Probation may be used at the front end of the Juvenile Justice systemfor first-time, low-risk offenders or at the back end as an alternative to institu-tional confinement for more serious of-fenders.

3 In some cases probation may bevoluntary, in which the youth agrees toJuvenile Probation: The Workhorse of theJuvenile Justice SystemPatricia McFall TorbetIn 1993 nearly million delinquencycases were handled by Juvenile every one of those cases hadcontact with a probation officer at somepoint. Probation departments screenedmost of those cases to determine howthey should be processed, made deten-tion decisions on some of them, preparedinvestigation reports on most of them,provided supervision to over a half mil-lion of them, and delivered aftercare serv-ices to many of the juveniles releasedfrom institutions.

4 Since 1929, when thefirst Juvenile Court Statistics report waspublished using 1927 data, probationhas been the overwhelming disposi-tional choice of Juvenile and family courtjudges. In 1993, 56 percent of all casesadjudicated for a delinquency offensereceived probation as the most severedisposition, compared with 28 percentthat were placed in some type of residen-tial facility, 12 percent that were givensome other disposition ( , fines, resti-tution, or community service), and 4 per-cent that were dismissed with no the past several years, theNational Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ)has produced reports, parts of which de-scribe the profession of probation or theyouth on probation (see References).

5 Thisinformation is compiled here to presentthe most comprehensive picture of juve-nile probation activity in the the AdministratorThis bulletin was prepared, in part,based upon responses to a nation-wide survey of Juvenile probationofficers and administrators conductedin 1992 by NCJJ. The survey waspart of ongoing efforts by NCJJ sJuvenile Probation Officer Initiative(JPOI) to address the needs ofjuvenile probation officers nationallythrough applied research, programdevelopment, technical assistance,and information dissemination. JPOIis a component of NCJJ s TechnicalAssistance to the Juvenile CourtProject funded by the Office ofJuvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention (OJJDP).

6 As part of JPOI, NCJJ compiled adata base of Juvenile probationofficers in every county in thecountry. This data base is used toselect random samples for surveys,analyze information about probationdepartments, and disseminateinformation to the field. Informationon youth placed on probation comesfrom the Juvenile Court Statisticsseries, which describes data storedin the National Juvenile Court DataArchive at NCJJ. The archive, fundedby OJJDP, contains the most detailedinformation available on youth in-volved in the Juvenile Justice systemand on activities of the Nation sjuvenile is my hope that this bulletinassists the probation field in itscritically important BilchikAdministratorShay Bilchik, AdministratorMarch 19962 How Many JuvenileProbation Officers AreThere in the Country?

7 There are an estimated 18,000 juvenileprobation professionals impacting thelives of juveniles in the United with a period of informal proba-tion in lieu of formal adjudication. Moreoften, once adjudicated and formally or-dered to a term of probation, the juvenilemust submit to the probation conditionsestablished by the official duties of Juvenile probationprofessionals vary from State to State andcan even differ between jurisdictions with-in a single State. Nonetheless, a basic setof Juvenile probation functions includes:intake screening of cases referred to juve-nile and family courts, predisposition orpresentence investigation of juveniles,and court-ordered supervision of all probation departments executeall three of these functions example, in some jurisdictions theprosecutor shares the intake responsibil-ity with the probation officer, and in otherjurisdictions the prosecutor has sole re-sponsibility for the intake process.

8 Simi-larly, probation responsibilities are notalways limited to intake, investigation,and supervision. Some departments alsoprovide aftercare for youth released frominstitutions; others may administer deten-tion or manage local residential facilitiesor special Are ProbationDepartments Organized?Probation services are administered bythe local Juvenile court or by the State ad-ministrative office of courts in 23 Statesand the District of Columbia. In another14 States, probation administration is acombination of structures, usually withservices administered by the juvenilecourt in urban counties and by a Stateexecutive system of probation in smallercounties.

9 In 10 States probation is adminis-tered statewide through an executivebranch department. In three States, thecounty executive administers probation(Table 1).While Juvenile probation servicescontinue to be predominantly organizedunder the judiciary, recent legislative ac-tivity has primarily transferred these serv-ices from the local Juvenile court to a Statecourt judicial department. The transfer ofjuvenile probation services to State judi-cial administration is consistent with theemerging pattern of State funding percent of these professionalsare involved in the delivery of basic intake,investigation, and supervision services atthe line officer level.

10 The remaining 15 per-cent are involved in the administration ofprobation offices or the management ofprobation 1:Probation Supervision Tends To Be Administered byLocal Juvenile Courts or by a State Executive Branch AgencyState AdministrationLocal AdministrationJudicial BranchExecutive BranchJudicial BranchExecutive BranchConnecticutAlaskaAlabamaCalifornia HawaiiArkansasArizonaIdahoIowaDelawareAr kansasMinnesotaKentuckyFloridaCalifornia MississippiNebraskaGeorgiaColoradoNew YorkNorth CarolinaIdahoDistrict ofOregonNorth DakotaKentucky ColumbiaWashingtonSouth DakotaLouisianaGeorgiaWisconsinUtahMaine IllinoisWest