You're watching FJTN, the federal judicial television network. Offenders generally come into our system with limited job skills, limited employment skills, limited job readiness skills, limited educational skills.  One problem that patrol services officers experience with defendants who perhaps have less education than others is that they may not understand the court process. This is a difficult population to supervise because they lack a lot of skills, basic skills of life, coping skills, they lack job skills. In fact, it goes beyond even the job skills, it goes to the inability to even apply for a job. That lack of employment and that lack of educational skills certainly has affected supervision overall. It's created more work for officers, it's created a need for officers to find more resources, work with offenders more closely to develop skills to assist them in daily life. The problem that arises is that frequently this the information the court could rely upon to begin to shape some kind of a disposition that takes these deficits into consideration. That information is not before the court in the timely fashion. So the court doesn't really find out about the problem until the situation is down the road. For example, the defendant is sentenced and the court decides to send an individual to get his GED. Individuals involved in employment programs, job readiness programs or educational programs tend to refrain from violating the law. When the matter comes back, you find out that the individual has not followed through with the GED program. And the question arises why? They're not necessarily in a place in their lives that they're motivated to make changes and to try to better themselves. They're not necessarily going to ask us for assistance. With a little more investigation and I'm speaking about a case that I have clearly in mind as my own, you find out that the real problem is, thanks to the insights of the probation officer, you learn that the real problem is that the person can't read. It's actually the function of the probation office to address those needs. I think it's been difficult and I think it continues to be challenging, but based on the definition of the role, it's a multi-dimensional role and it's our obligation to fulfill that. My experience has been that the offenders are thankful that they're getting some attention, but you will run across individuals who are very difficult to work with. And it's just a little more draining on the officer's part, but we do our best. Live on FJTN from the nation's capital, the Federal Judicial Center presents special needs offenders, reducing risk through employment and education. Now here's your program host, Mark Maggio. Hello everyone and welcome to our continuing special needs offender series. Today's topic, as the title suggests, is reducing risk through employment and education. As we saw in the opening clip, offenders and defendants with limited job skills, limited education, those who simply have trouble managing basic life tasks, pose a challenge to almost everyone in the federal system. Through discussions with panelists both here in the studio and at several push-to-talk sites, we'll explore those challenges and learn what officers are doing to successfully manage them. By sharing strategies for investigation and supervision, we may better understand this population and perhaps help ease the management of officers already busy caseloads. As you know, each program in the special needs offender series consists of bulletins, broadcasts, and online conferences that take an in-depth look at one unique defendant offender population. You should have already received the first part of this reducing risk program, the special needs offender bulletin, that introduces our target population in detail. And you should also have the participant guide available on the JNET that's especially devoted to the next step in this series, which is today's broadcast. This broadcast is for you and we encourage you to participate, ask questions, and share your thoughts with us. We've built in time for discussion throughout the program. Our toll-free phone and fax numbers will appear on the screen throughout the broadcast. Feel free to use the fax form that was also on the JNET at any time during the broadcast. Now, we're going to today's agenda. Our first panel will introduce today's topic with an overview identifying problems, abilities, and community resources. Then I'll come back to explain what works in investigation and supervision. Next, we'll move to our second panel and discuss overcoming resistance, after which we'll take a short break and come back to our third panel on developing community partners and in-house programs. Then, with our last panel, we'll discuss mitigating life skills related conflict with a final wrap-up at the end. And you'll see me throughout the program primarily as the voice of the fax machine. And since we have a lot to cover in the next two hours, let's get right to it and turn the program over to our moderator, Mark Sherman, who will introduce our first panel. Thanks, Mark. Our first topic is an overview that highlights the importance of identifying problems, abilities, and community resources. And in the studio today, we have Verdell Freeman, Senior U.S. Probation Officer for the District of Columbia, and Elizabeth Barola, Supervising U.S. Pretrial Services Officer from the District of Arizona. Welcome. Thank you, Mark. For this panel and throughout the program, we'll set the stage so to speak with a short video clip. To kick off this discussion, we'll take a closer look at Thomas Derek Ross. You'll remember he was featured in the Special Needs Offenders Bulletin. It's from the PBS documentary series Seeking Solutions with Hedrick Smith. Let's take a look. This is Benning Terrace, a public housing project and ground zero of a bloody gang feud between two rival camps, the Alabama Avenue crew and the Circle crew. Derek Ross was a leader of the Circle. You can just walk right up and down the street with a salt rifle or something, and you didn't have the worst you had to worry about with some senior citizen getting on the telephone and calling the police and saying something about it. It became a city of lawlessness, so where there's anarchy, there you had it. The street war claimed the lives of eight young men in just eight months. Then in January 1997, Darrell Hall of Benning Terrace was abducted at gunpoint on his way home from school and brutally shot in the back of the head. He was only 12. The DC Housing Authority manages Benning Terrace. To stop the killing, Housing Chief David Gilmour decided to tear down part of the Circle. I actually ordered the staff to prepare the demolition application at that moment. I said, it's time for us to do this. It's time for us to wipe it out. As Darrell's murder hit the headlines, street soldiers Tyrone Parker and Rico Rush were deeply disturbed. We wanted to stop the killing. That's what we wanted to do, but we had no idea how we were going to do it. So I said, the only thing we can do is go up there and talk to the kids. Talk to those who basically involve creating these problems. Rico and Tyrone began contacting Avenue and Circle gang members. Ain't nothing can stop it. It'll stop when it stops. I mean, y'all can't stop it. The police tried to stop it. The men ran into a stone wall. Talking to the kids, Rico saw himself. All those guys was talking big and they're going to do this and they're going to do that. We're going to shoot you. We're going to shoot, you know, we're going to do that. Deep down the side, they just want somebody to care about them. That's how I was. Some might call Rico Rush and Tyrone Parker unlikely street savers. In their youth, both went to jail. Tyrone for bank robbery, Rico for weapon and drug charges. But they turned their lives around and committed themselves to a group they call the Alliance of Concerned Men. Their past helps them understand street fighters like those at Benning Terrace. To help young men and women alone and build their confidence, the Alliance teaches life skills. Once involved in the young person's life, they become totally committed. 24 hours a day. They operate on a simple principle that deep down everyone wants nurturing. Even the toughest of the tough want the human touch. They're always ready to listen and step in whenever things go wrong. They pray together and these words we say they break bread together. And taking a lesson from Rico, they hug. But when they showed up at Benning Terrace right after Daryl Hall's murder, the Alliance was viewed with suspicion. I left because I was like this day police. They could be wired. I'm not even talking to them. So I left. Derrick Ross had a spirit that was non-negotiable. No tolerance. Very cold. Random with iron fists. Whatever Derrick said, that's how it was going to be. But the Alliance persisted and earned the guy's respect. After years of street war, the circles and avenues agreed to drop their weapons and stop their feud. When their truce makes headlines, Housing Chief David Gilmore reads about it in the Washington Post. I'm sitting there reading this paper and saying to myself, that's it. Somebody has had a better idea. Dropping his plan to start demolition at Benning Terrace, Gilmore agrees to pay the street guys to remove the graffiti. Gilmore was essential because it's one thing for us to give a man a spiritual uplift. He still gotta eat. The avenues and circles worked side by side to remove years of painful memories. Gradually, Benning Terrace goes from ghost town back to neighborhood once again. Success at Benning Terrace prompts Gilmore to assign these former gang members to jobs across the city, improving other DC housing properties. The biggest surprise. Come on DCHA James Crip. Former Circle Leader Derrick Ross. It's the same guy that a lot of people said that I don't know why you're going to talk to him. He'll never talk to y'all. He'll never do this. He'll never do that. This kid has literally taken his life and flipped it upside down. Or shall we say, righted it from where it was. And that was done, I suppose, only back. Among hundreds of applicants, Derrick wins one of 12 coveted slots in the Housing Authority's Management Internship program. He works in a property management office. Question number nine. And he goes to college. And that's all. To get certified to be a property manager anywhere in the country. I didn't think it could happen because it had never happened actually to me until the alliance and stuff came along. And marching from the avenue to the circle. Determination. They celebrate how far they have come together. If it can happen in Benning Terrace, in one of the most violent neighborhoods, in one of the most violent cities in America. If it can happen there, then it can occur in every community. All right Elizabeth, let's start with you. The goal of this segment of the program is to highlight the importance of identifying problems, abilities, and community resources. So to get us started. In your view, what were some of Ross's abilities that helped contribute to his success, but also what are some of his problems that contribute to his continuing difficulties? Well Mark, I see very clearly that Ross has abilities in his leadership qualities and in his basic survival instincts. And even though these abilities and skills were gathered in a non-traditional really negative way through his gang affiliation. Nonetheless, there's still transferable skills that an officer can use to build on a successful supervision plan. And I also think that Ross has a very, very clear picture of the problems he faces in his environment and in his neighborhood. Clearly he knows that there are obstacles, there are barriers that he needs to overcome. He's very aware of that. But he also has some negative attributes as well. He continues to have what appears to be an anger management problem. He has some prior substance abuse history and even maybe some possible current alcohol use. So those things continue to plague him and things that he'll have to address and if he's going to succeed. Everdale? Yes. I'll concur with what was said by Elizabeth. Mr. Ross utilized the community agencies to assist him. As being a leader in a group, which Elizabeth indicated was is a negative, he was able to turn a negative around to be something positive. The housing authorities saw something that needed to be done and they used it to their best interests. They hired him. They taught him a skill. They encouraged him to go to school to become a resident manager. There were people out of the community that believed in him and they worked with him. This is our own backyard here in DC and your own backyard as an officer. It's interesting to see how they were able to identify his leadership abilities and take them from being a gang member to working at the housing authority and perhaps becoming a property manager later on. That's correct. The housing authorities, they were talking about tearing down a building, people's homes. Development that has been in DC since probably the 1950s. They saw something that they could do that was a change and they captured on that change and the community, government as well as nonprofit agency came forth to assist. Right, right. It might be a good time now just to go out to our push-to-talk sites. Arizona pretrial in Phoenix, are you with us? Hi Mark, this is Regina Vagay. Hi Regina, how are you? Good. Any comments or reactions to anything that we've said here so far or questions that you might have following up from this initial intervention? We agree with the panelists that Mr. Ross possessed strong leadership skills. In addition, the problem that we saw is that as he's going through this transition from criminal to being a productive member of society, he's having difficulty coping with the common daily obstacles. For example, his multiple family obligations which lead to stress and to anger and to substance abuse and so on. Great point. Elizabeth, any reaction to that? I think that's probably true. Those are things that aren't going to go away. They're things that he has to work through and continue to try to address and he's going to have relapses, so to speak. He's going to slide backwards a bit but I think he's going to keep trying to keep going forward. Right, Brudel? Yes, and he also has a mechanism in the community that assists him with that. Although he obtained a new arrest, the housing authorities, the concerned citizens, they allow us as concerned citizens, they didn't turn their back on him. They continue to stand there with him as a family and they pushed him on. Right, Regina it's particularly an interesting point because yesterday as we were rehearsing this thing, we were talking about how dealing with defendants and offenders like this is sort of a two steps forward, one step back process, would you agree? I agree. And so your question really sort of brings that home. My understanding is that we've got a fax coming in as well, so maybe we can go to Mark Maggio for that. Mark? Okay, Mark, we've got the first question. Looks like some questions for folks that are watching the program here in the building to sort of help get the program started for us. And your first question on Ross. Ross seems to be the exception. How do you get someone to participate in such a program when they're not motivated? Brudel, Elizabeth? I think it's important to realize that he might be the exception to the normal. He might be a success story as we might call it, but at the same time I think it's important for us to strive for those kind of results for each one of our clients and that means breaking through resistance and it means establishing trust and gendering relationship there and helping them really as a helping agent to break through some of those barriers. So it's really up to us to attempt to help him break through some of that resistance. Brudel? I agree with what was said by also by Elizabeth. I do not see Mr. Ross as being an exception to the role as I pointed out yesterday. You did, you probably see this as a very depressing profession and since you're the community resources specialist in your district. That's correct. I think that we can see some good in all of them as the alliance of concerned men pointed out that these young men in the community as well as young women were looking for some nurturing, someone to care about them, to care about the environment and to come in to make a change and that's some of the things that the probation officer argued to do. It's interesting that you've mentioned that there are young women involved too and I'm wondering whether you've noticed an increase in the number of young women who are in who are similarly situated. Yes, we are seeing an increase of female offenders on supervision now. How about you Elizabeth, are you? Same thing. We see a tremendous influx now of women, maybe not as many as the men, but certainly more than we have in the past. I've seen several stories in the press lately about that and I was just wondering if that was in fact the case, like apparently so. Yes it is. Regina, I wanted to get back to you but before we do that I wanted to ask you if you could please turn the volume down on your monitor at your site. We're getting some feedback here. I'll give you a minute to do that and then ask you guys out in Phoenix whether you had anything further to add or any further questions based on what we've said here so far. Mark, we don't have any other thing to add. Great. Okay. Moving right along then. Vardell, next question. It would be good for you to talk about the community resources that we saw in the clip that have been able to sort of help Ross. And then after we've talked about that a little bit maybe talk about some of your own experiences working with community resources here in the district. The D.C. Housing Authority, which is a government agency, has been about for many years and they have been able to assist many of our clients with low income section 8 housing. So this is an agency that you've already had some experience with? Yes it yes it is. As well as the alliance of concerns men, not only do they work with men they also work with women. They provide them with counseling, with housing referrals, anger management, family counseling. Life skills. Life skills. Basically life skills being able to teach them to get from A to Z and back. In the years that I've been working at the probation office I have utilized many resources and community family life services has been very instrumental to the probation office in the District of Columbia. Community resources is a non-profit agency and they have assisted one of my female clients who has extensive prior rest record, who has eight children, who had a limited education. She dropped out of school in the eighth grade and they have a GED program so they assisted her in obtaining her GED. And community family life services is a non-governmental relatively small non-profit organization here in DC. That is correct but they do wonderful things in the community. They have a housing project. How did you find out about them? Do you remember? They've been around a while. I learned about community family life services in 1976 when I was a volunteer for the U.S. probation office and developing resources in the community.  And since community family services was already working with DC Superior Court, we wanted to find out well why can't you work with U.S. District Court. And they've been a excellent resource since 1975-76. Interesting. Okay my understanding I want to get to Elizabeth but before we do I understand that we have a phone call from Pamela. Is it the Southern District of New York? Hi, yes it is. Hi, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? Fine, welcome. Thank you. My question is I'm working as a community service resource and I'm also a little low it is, huh? Great, yeah. Okay, I'm also working with the employment and from our district. And the problems that I found along the way is just dealing with employers who can't seem to get by the stigma attached to the conviction. And even though as Ms. Freeman was saying, and I'm sorry I don't remember the other participants, Elizabeth, but as she was saying you're trying and you're working with them but the rejection that they're receiving over and over from employers who are just they just refuse to work with them. How do you how have you been overcoming the education process of the employer as opposed to the employees? It's an excellent question and we'll address it here but I also would ask you to stay tuned because we're also going to be talking about this later in the broadcast when we talk about developing community partners and there are some folks who who will be here to help you sort of figure out some guidelines and think about how to go about that but I know for Dell you've had a lot of experience with this. In fact we've talked about this very same thing. Give some advice to Pamela. Well in the District of Columbia there are a great deal of incentives in hiring ex-offenders. There is the job tax credit. There's a bonding program. The job tax credit is any nonprofit well government or nonprofit agency that will hire an offender and the offender remains on the job for at least six months will receive a $1,500 tax credit. Also there's a federal bonding program in the District of Columbia and there are incentives for hiring ex-offenders but you really have to educate the employer. You have to let him know that you need to judge the offender on his work abilities and not on his past that we do screen our offenders very carefully. We will assure them that there are no history of mental illness no assault of behavior that they are drug-free and alcohol-free and we do give them an officer's name that there are any questions that they have to red contact with. So interestingly what you have to do is sort of provide a mix of incentives for the officer for the employer to go along with you and I think that the certainly the tax incentives are something that they need to know up up front. That's correct but you also you refer your best client. Okay.  So you've broken the ice. You've broken the ice but you also have to let the employer know that everyone is not going to be like Mr. Jones. Right. Okay. There will be people that will may not stay on the job as long may not work to Mr. Jones ability but at least you've broken the ice and you maintain contact with that employer and you you know you develop a trust and a rapport with them. Excellent my understanding is that the caller is now the panel is now off the line but Pamela I hope that helps and Vardell I don't want to put you on the spot but would it be all right for Pamela to give you a call on the DC probation? Sure she may. All right. So there you go. My understanding is that we also have a fax in from the DC probation office so let's go to let's go to Mark for that Mark. Okay. Yes. From the DC probation office Vardell your folks are watching you so. Thank you. Not to put any pressure on you there. And Mr. Ross's current position as a resident manager do you consider this placement as a third party risk? I would not think that the placement as a resident manager would be a third party risk simply because Mr. Gilmore who is in charge of the housing is a charge of housing authority was aware of Mr. Ross criminal background. Also Mr. Ross was a resident of the Benning Heights dwelling and in order to be in sexual aid housing there are background checks that are conducted on all of the tenants and he would be considered as a risk at this time but Mr. Ross also has a history of drug abuse as well as a history of anger management but with the probation officer monitoring his adjustment of supervision and maintaining contact with his supervisor at any time that Mr. Ross fall graces with his conditions then he may become a risk and it's the responsibility of the probation officer at that time to adjust a plan or notify his supervisor of maybe moving him from the job of responsibility because as a resident manager he does have a lot of responsibility. All right Elizabeth I want to get you into the discussion here a little bit and backtrack a bit and I'm wondering whether you had any response to Pamela's previous call where she was talking about difficulty with employers or whether you've come across that at all? Well I think that we have to look at Mr. Ross's situation also where for example the alliance was a tremendous resource and support system form and I do think it's it is possible that you're going to run across problems with your employers particularly in a pre-trial setting where so much of the information is confidential and we can't release things and we can't really talk to people about certain things so I think that from a pre-trial perspective you need to be very careful about what you do with employers but I do think you should still be out there trying to look for resources making those community connections and keep trying with employers and you may have to try several of them before you find some that will actually stick but I think that that's something we need to keep doing. Good, good. We're closing in on the end of this segment so I'm thinking what we would do is perhaps take a look at the next question here and then go directly out to our push to talk site in Mississippi, Northern the question is this we know that since the filming of the PBS documentary that Ross has been arrested on a child abuse charge he pled guilty and he was sentenced to weekend jail and probation Mississippi, Northern are you with us? Yeah, Mark, we're here. I'm sorry to put you on the spot who's speaking? Mark, this is Danny McKintree. Danny, how are you? We only have a couple of minutes left I wanted to ask just go directly to you all and see how how would you handle this situation now that he's been re-arrested, pled guilty and sentenced how would you handle this if you were his probation officer? Mark, we looked at this case as a district and we came up with several things that we thought would be imperative in the supervision of this case and particularly the continued supervision first thing that we would do was to get in touch with a new probation officer that apparently has been assigned to this case as a result of this child abuse charge we felt like that we would also want to contact the counselor that was going to be handling the anger management and the parenting skills that he would be involved in and to particularly really to verify that he was actively participating in that program we also considered the third-party risk in this case but from a different angle than was brought up earlier and that we were concerned about the third-party risk of him being in the home with this child we weren't for sure whether he was actually living in the residence where the child was assaulted but that was certainly something that we would take into consideration and if it was determined that he was actually spending time in this residence with this child we considered placement in a community correction center CCC placement particularly until he completed the anger management and the parenting program let me start the other thing that excuse me let me stop you there let me stop you there Danny because we've only got about 45 seconds left in the segment and I wanted to quickly get to Elizabeth because she's got a probation background as well as a pretrial background so Elizabeth your reactions to what Danny's talking about I think that's very important they're taking a very close look at not only his the positives in his life but his limitations as well and that includes the anger management that's a terrific way of looking at it from that perspective of the third-party risk also dealing with the children exactly and if need be to place him in a community correction center for a while that would be the ultimate if we'd be able to still keep him in the community and we'd still be able to work with him but we'd be able to watch him as well right so it's really a holistic approach to the entire thing well excellent Danny I hope that helps we've got to leave it there unfortunately because we are out of time I really really appreciate the contributions of all of the sites and the phone calls great discussion that's basically how our panels are going to work for the rest of the program we'll start with the studio we'll move to the push to talk sites we'll get some faxes and phone calls in and continue with discussions and comments we'll learn more learning from each other but now that we've finished the overview let's pause for a brief look at the learning principles for this segment and then go back to Mark Maggio we'll talk about a model framework the january 2000 special needs offenders bulletin introduced officers to a model for investigating and supervising disadvantaged defendants and offenders the model integrates the related tasks of supervision case management including investigation and program evaluation further because it emphasizes reducing risk enforcing conditions and applying correctional treatment it fits well with the enhanced supervision approach the remainder of the broadcast will focus on tools and guidelines that fit this model keep this model in mind throughout the broadcast especially as Mark Sherman takes us into our next topic now that we've looked at that model let's get into some specific techniques for assessing defendants and offenders Elizabeth remains here with us and joining us now is Brian DeMar a senior U.S. probation officer from the southern district of Texas welcome Brian good afternoon let's first take a look at a short vignette which takes place at a pretrial intake interview Nathan Hale is beginning pretrial supervision today with the United States pretrial services officer Joanne Smith in preparation for this interview Smith has reviewed Hale's file which indicates that he was charged with possession with intent to distribute a small quantity of marijuana he has one prior misdemeanor drug offense Hale completed high school through the 10th grade and possesses no special skills or training he was raised by his mother in a suburban working class neighborhood and has lived continuously with her and his younger sister Hale is not married and has no dependence he is unemployed and has no source of income he previously held a series of minimum wage food service jobs such as dishwasher and busboy all right now that we've gone through the conditions of release Mr. Hale do you have any questions no no questions is that it oh just a few more items I see that you're living with your mother and younger sister on uh Sutton yep how about any job prospects anything lined up you know I notice here that you could get your GED that could lead to better job opportunities guess I've never thought about it well you really should think about it Mr. Hale and about your housing situation I'm familiar with your neighborhood and frankly I'm a little concerned about you living in that environment look there's nothing wrong with where I live I didn't say that there was however you might want to think of some alternative living arrangements because the judge may not want you to live there much longer no well you need to give this some serious thought I'm sure you'll think of something look my mom my sister there and all my friends too I like where I live I don't need to move well we'll come back to that later now what about employment finding and maintaining a job is a special condition of your release now you understand what that means right that means that if you do not find and maintain a job the judge will revoke your pre-trial release so do you know of any places where you might apply for work I used to work in a few restaurants I suppose I could see if there's any place around my house that needs help that's a good idea do you enjoy working in restaurants well then Mr. Hale I think we're just about done I need you to return in a week with a list of at least three applications you've submitted and interviews you've had with a contact person for each you can use this verification report let's see how about the ninth Elizabeth this is a pre-trial situation so it makes sense to start with you this is a difficult situation but let's talk about what the defendants positive and negative attributes are that the pretrial services officer might consider and putting together the supervision plan well I think it's important for the pretrial officer to consider that there are some positives in this case he does have a support system through his mother and sister that he seems to enjoy and be it's important to him and then he also has some education and some job history it's not substantial but it's something to work from and the officer can build again a supervision plan from this he does have some negatives in his background but in terms of his environment that's one of the big things and that as the officer alluded to in the clip is something he's going to have to deal with because in fact the court may order him to deal with that situation and he's very resistant he's very resistant he's upset and the officer is going to have to consider all of those things when she's preparing the supervision plan what about any help from the support system I know you and I have talked in the past about the importance of support systems particularly with defendants like this one anything there to work with absolutely if he has a good relationship with his mother and his sister he's going to be she's going to be able to work and make some connections and collateral contacts with them it's important I think for the officer to be involved in his life in that way so that they can help her bring him back in and maybe into compliance if necessary all right Brian let's get you in on this I know you deal with this type of of client offender all the time anything there to build on for you I agree with Elizabeth there appear to be good family support I would want to make contact with the mother and the sister to introduce myself with them to establish a report with them and to communicate to them that I too am interested in Nathan and we want to have a positive supervision experience so you want to do somewhere digging exactly yes yes I know that we've talked about the importance of having a support system there other than sort of making contact with with the mother how long would you wait before making contact with his support system with Nathan I wouldn't wait too long considering his attitude of negative disposition during our initial interview I would try to make contact with Nathan before the end of the week make a home visit communicate to Nathan that I intend to come by the house to meet with him his mother and his sister and inform Nathan I might even make a telephone call to mom and sister to introduce myself to break the ice and to go by there and have a family conference mm-hmm so you want to bring everybody into the discussion here with Nathan yes all right well since this is a pretrial situation it may make sense for us to first go out to North Carolina Eastern pretrial to get your responses to our discussion or any any questions you might have and then we've got a fax North Carolina Eastern pretrial are you with us I hear something in the studio but yes mark we're here how are you welcome aboard we're fine how are you good thanks good thanks any reactions or questions well mark hold on let's see we can fix this problem sure okay take two here we go are we coming in now yep okay we we do agree with with demar the contact with the mother is probably the most crucial thing that needs to happen first because through the vignette we weren't able to tell exactly what the mother's history is what kind of a person she is what her expectations of her son are so we would first really seriously need to look into that to see what his home situation really is because at this point we just don't know reaction brian I agree I think we see Nathan Nathan's giving us one side one point of view I would be very curious as to mother's point of view her feelings about Nathan as well as the system and evaluate that relationship is it a good is it a positive support system or is it a negative support system Elizabeth reactions again I think it takes a really positive skew if the relationship is good that's a tremendous foundation to build from and that's something you want to find out upfront absolutely interesting North Carolina pretrial anything anything more to add to this conversation sure we have lots more to add yeah let's take it to us okay some of the things that we found we're dealing with education employment and life skills we weren't really sure if they were positive or negative without further exploration so some other things we would like to look into would be especially relating to life skills is what role has his father played in his life where is his life has he had a positive male influence in his life that would give him someone to emulate as far as getting out in the world because I know the officer had mentioned that she wanted him to possibly get out from the residence with the mother and get out of that neighborhood that she deemed to be bad well does he have any kind of life experience to get out and live on his own we don't know that we don't know if he has any experience whatsoever of being a responsible citizen responsible for paying his own bills and for doing that we we already know that his work experience is very limited so what experience does he have managing his own money in his own circumstances sure so you're going to just want to look at the whole thing you're going to want to do some serious digging here before you before you make any decisions correct okay the question the the point is is an excellent one and really provides a good segue into the next question but before we get to that we do have a fax I want to turn to Mark Maggio for that Mark Mark you've got two questions here they're basically getting at the same general point so I'm going to give them to you very quickly and they might even be questions that you'll find you can carry through discussion with some of the other panel members first one comes from Jennifer Marsh and Jennifer asks can you suggest a few good assessment tools that officers can use to identify an offender's strengths and areas for improvement in terms of education, employment and life skills I'm especially interested in ones that can be used with the offender to develop goals and a plan that is reasonable and realistic the second question from Kathleen Ochre and in Ohio Northern basically is asking is there any use of a career or interest type testing to determine what type of education and or employment might be best suited for the offender kind of both getting to the same point so I thought you might be able to run with those good all right I want to ask Brian first since we're going to talk later on in the broadcast about your reasoning and rehabilitation program your in-house program that kind of thing in terms of career testing have you had any experience with that at all no I haven't but we have thanks to the Northern District of California we do have an assessment tool that we use for cognitive skills deficits if the offender meets three of those eight criterias we know that there's a need there's a need to be concerned we have a high risk offender and we need to make the appropriate referrals and that tool can be used not only for referring to the R&R program but to determine the needs of an offender and so that you can make the appropriate referrals okay Elizabeth any experience with referring folks for career testing or any other type of sort of outside testing in order to get a more formal assessment not really in terms of career assessments we have taken it a little step by step at the onset where we're trying to find out whether or not the person can for example function in terms of reading literacy that kind of thing but so far we haven't really dealt too much into the area of referring out for career testing but that's certainly an area that's important and if you're going to make anyone's life impact in terms of the education employment that's a very important criterion to consider Ohio and Northern I will say that it's sort of in my research and putting together the special needs offenders bullet and I spoke with several officers out in the field I don't remember specifically who they were right now but who have had this experience referring offenders for career testing specific types of outside assessments by professionals to find out where they are toward the beginning of the supervision so that an appropriate supervision plan could be developed and so perhaps if you want to contact me after the broadcast via telephone or email I can help you out with that and perhaps hook you up with one of these officers that that I talk to also you'll notice in the special needs offenders bullet and that there's at least something there that talks about making referrals for literacy testing in fact in the vignette you noticed the officer going over the conditions of supervision but not really being too sure about whether this person understood them so excellent question let's get quickly to Jennifer Marsh's question about assessment tools are there are there assessment tools that you can use in-house other than sort of your Brian your reasoning and rehabilitation cognitive assessment tool which is a good one anything else you can use I am somewhat familiar with the SAS C1 testing I know that there's some district that have used that particular tool and have found that to evaluate the vocational needs of a defender whether or not they have a substance abuse issue I'm not too sure but might even evaluate the level their reading ability level but there may be some individuals out there in the district that may have used that tool and would like to call in and share that information with the district excellent excellent hope that answers your question Jennifer and Ohio Northern again any other further follow-ups or questions you can certainly direct them to me after the broadcast and we'll try to get to them Elizabeth let's talk about sort of the officers attitude during this during this intake interview what's your what's your gut on it well she clearly seemed to have done her homework she had reviewed the file materials she seemed to have a good understanding of what the release conditions were she didn't get rattled by his defensiveness but at the same time I think when she brought up the issue about his environment her timing might have been a little off because she set off the defensiveness mode and so I think she might have tried to make a few more positive connections maybe back off a little bit find some common ground and build on some of those positive connections that she she could make I think the defensiveness and the resistance is going to be there anyway build that trust up front so overall I think she did a good job I just think she might have backed off a little bit in terms of that environment question because that's clearly a sore point for him Brian what do you think about the techniques that she used and whether there's anything more that either she could have done in the actual intake interview or whether they're what more she could do in the future I thought she handled the situation very well and I agree agree with Elizabeth she maintained control when it appeared and Nathan was getting angry or getting upset she controlled situation by the body gesture she didn't feed into his anger which I thought was very important this is the initial interview there's going to be many more interviews to come let's get to the next level get the information read the condition reassure assure that he understands the conditions give him an assignment happen come back as soon as possible and deal with issues more issues the next time he come back I would not encourage confrontation the initial interview right so we're talking about achieving common ground here we're talking about not jumping to conclusions about where this person is at we're trying to we're talking about trying to suppress any annoyance or anger that that person may be trying to provoke in you which is probably something that they're used to doing and getting very interesting without further ado let's go out to our folks in New York Western our push to talk site out there New York Western are you with us? Hi Mark it's Colleen very hope you are Hi Colleen how are you doing? I'm good thanks we thought the officer handled herself pretty well we would absolutely concur with what Brian and Elizabeth have already said about not letting his negative attitude escalate one of the things that we noticed was that Nathan was ready to terminate that interview before it even began that's right and the officer didn't let that happen we also were impressed with she was very clear and specific with him what she wanted him to do when she wanted it done when she want things back and that eliminates any confusion or eliminates the defendant being able to say you know you didn't give me enough information I were clear about that so we thought those were a couple things that she did very well she also reinforced some of the positive that he had in his background regarding his education his employment again even though they were minimal like Elizabeth has touched on she reinforced it so those are some of the things that we thought she did very well I'll tell does this scenario ring true to you at all I mean is this something that you are familiar with and something you've come up against before I'm sorry Mark could you just repeat the question we had turned our volume down could you repeat the question sure I'm wondering whether this vignette or this intake interview was something that rings true to you something that you've seen before yeah we thought the negativeness and the resistance rang very true while we agree with Brian that we wouldn't want to escalate the situation I do think I would have wanted to have done a little bit of attitude adjustment a little earlier on there though that's that's putting it lightly I think Mark can I can I touch base too we wanted to give some information about the federal bonding program that program now is administered by states it used to be administered by the federal government through an insurance agency it's no longer done that way it's done by states and at least in New York state in ways it's done by the department of labor and for instance in the whole state of New York there are only 50 bonds to be given out so it's not a program that is as accessible as we would like it to be excellent point and something for officers to be aware of thank you so much for that and for the for the interchange as well we're running low on time for this segment so Brian briefly I wanted to go to the last question for this segment and then get out to to the push to talk sites okay this was a pretrial setting you are a probation officer would you do anything differently in a probation setting as opposed to a pretrial setting and I'm particularly interested in in terms of the the length of time of supervision and the amount of leverage that probation officers have versus the amount of leverage that a pretrial officer might have I have to agree with the officer in a New York district I would have mildly confronted Nathan's attitude talked about Nathan's attitude and carried him to work on that attitude so that we can have a working relationship engage him more in dialogue so you would have explicitly addressed it I want to talk to him about it interesting I would encourage him that we we want to have a good experience here I'm not his enemy I'm here to help you and the better attitude do you have the harder that I will work for you and it's very important that we have a give and take relationship and I will communicate that during the initial interview I do not want Nathan to leave my office with a negative attitude fear for what he may do there after so I want to address that in my office calm it down as much as I can in my office and I spent a lot of time with it this is my initial interview I have a lot of more time to spend with Nathan and I will address those issues each each office visit right so you're going to take a long-term view of this thing yes Elizabeth turning to you because you've done both the pretrial and probation sides does the special condition of employment add any leverage for the pretrial officer I think it does I think all the conditions are important because they they have their consequence based and the consequence oriented so clearly if they're not going to comply the court's going to know about it but I think in terms of the employment issue if the officer has done a substantial bail investigation in those time crunches that they have to work in they're going to know that he's going to he or she's going to need a job or education and so that condition is important to have however on the other hand I think it's important for us to note that in some areas for example in the district of Arizona where we have a large a rural area we have Native American nations out there where jobs are scarce and they're hard to come by it's important for them to do exactly sometimes if that condition is there we may set the client up for failure because we're trying to impose something that's going to be difficult in an economically depressed area so perhaps in that's in that time we need to take a look at whether or not education needs to be the focus instead of employment but one or the other is important just get him doing something and get him doing something all right we've only got about 30 seconds left here but I did want to go quickly out to Texas Southern Probation Texas Southern are you with us? we sure are hi hi Mark uh this is Hilda Barman of Edis welcome aboard any reactions or questions to what we've been talking about so far? agreed with the panel we just feel that unlike pretrial the probation officer does have the benefit of the longevity in the interviewing process at the assessment of the offenders cognitive educational financial and basic skills we also felt we had a different impression of the pretrial officer mm-hmm we appreciated her thoroughness yet we felt we would display a positive attitude and show maybe more interest for the offenders needs um these interviewing techniques that would provide clues to the offenders characteristics and basic skills excellent point I think that you are definitely reinforcing what Elizabeth was talking about before in terms of trying to suppress that annoyance perhaps deal with his conference deal with confront his resistance and sort of deal with his deal with that up front and try to put a positive spin on this thing great points I'm sorry we've got it cut it off now and get on to the next segment but before we do that we want to take a short break and as we go to it we're going to leave you with the learning principles from this last discussion thanks for your participation it's really adding a lot of energy to this to this broadcast at least here in the studio we want to keep Mark Maggio busy with your faxes and phone calls we'll make him earn his money and we'll be back in five miles and I perform a vital chore for the information in me helps the center to take stock it helps them make their programs work to help you do your job please fill me in 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