By Brendon Kohrs – Probation Officer
The main focus for a police department and its officers is to preserve the peace, protect persons and property, and obey and enforce all the ordinances of the legislative authority.1 The focus of the probation department is to enforce the rules governing probation, ordinances of the legislative body, keeping information concerning the conduct and condition of the offender, requiring of reports and rehabilitation. 2 Through these definitions we have the understanding of how the two departments are required to accomplish their objectives within the realm of law enforcement. Both agencies are tasked to complete a different job, yet have the opportunity to come together to complete one common goal to ensure public safety now and in the future.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of the work, the fact that the two agencies are isolated from another, one rarely knows what the other is accomplishing. It is rare that the local probation department sends a current probationer list to each of its local police departments. This, in turn, forces the offender to tell the police officer if they are on probation if arrested or detained. Common sense states that most offenders will not mention this to an arresting officer due to future ramifications with the court system. An example of this would be someone who is on probation for a felony offense. They would not want to have their Probation Officer (PO) find out that they were arrested for another offense and have to possibly face serving their suspended jail or prison sentence. They could just as easily not mention their probation status and the PO would not find out. This only works when the offender commits the new crime outside of his PO’s normal jurisdiction, or if his PO does not complete routine background checks. Background checks are required by most departments to be done by each PO, but when the officer has a caseload of 50-200 offenders and has to complete Presentence Investigation Reports, it can be difficult to complete a background check on each offender on a routine basis.
Not only would providing a probationer list to the local police departments help the probation department in keeping better tabs on an offender, but the knowledge to the individual police officers to know where the offenders are located would be a fantastic advantage. Since most offenders are not first time criminals, it helps to know where they live in order to find the hot spots in a city or county. This may in turn let the police department have more control over certain crimes. For example, it would be easier to stop someone from being harmed if they knew who the habitual drug and repeat driving-under-the-influence offenders were and where they lived. What about the knowledge of knowing where that sexual predator is living and who is supervising their probation? Not to mention the person who has beaten their spouse more than once, and could at anytime repeat that very behavior with fatal results.
The police department has a great deal of power but most of it is taken away from the officers due to the offender’s rights. A police officer needs to have some type of probable cause in order to conduct a search on a residence or a person. However, if the offender is on probation, the PO has the power to conduct a warrantless search without having to justify probable cause. Anything that is found on or in the offender’s residence, vehicle, or person, can be used to revoke the probation, or used to indict the offender with a new crime.
Just recently one of our PO’s was conducting a search of a probationer when he came upon an unidentified substance in the front pants pocket and a four-inch lock blade knife in the rear left pants pocket. The probationer stated that the substance was cookie crumbs and the knife was for work. The officer took the substance to the local police department and had it field-tested for crack cocaine. The field test came out positive for crack, and the substance was then tagged and sent to the Bureau of Criminal Identification for further testing and analysis. Once the report came back as positive, the probationer was charged with a new crime: possession of drugs; a felony of the fifth degree in Ohio. The knife, also seized, will be used in conjunction with the new charge for revoking this individual’s probation. The knife itself is admissible because it is against the “Rules of Probation” to be in possession of a dangerous ordinance. Not only does an offender have to obey the “Rules of Probation” when in contact with his PO, but this also applies to everyday life. The rules do differ for each probation department, but not substantially. For most probation department regulations, it is illegal for probationers to be in possession of any type of weapons, drugs or alcohol. They are not allowed in any alcohol serving establishments and they may even be required to abide by a curfew. There are also rules that govern their assumed cooperation with any/all law enforcement agencies that they have come into contact with. The last rule mentioned is always a clincher for most offenders, because they rarely want to cooperate with law enforcement unless there is some sort of stipulation – such as an outstanding warrant.
In order for the probation department to complete its task of rehabilitating the offender, they also have to know what that person is doing when the PO is not around. In turn, it is necessary for the police department to know who the offenders are in their jurisdiction to prevent further crime. I know that each of these two departments are very busy and they rarely have time to contact one another, but some type of progress should be made to promote safety and to establish a proactive, interdependent approach between probation officers and police departments. This would present a strong, unified front, capable of tackling any crime in its path.
1Ohio Revised Code Section 737.11
2Ohio Revised Code Section 2301.30
Brendon Kohrs has been a probation officer with the Portage County Adult Probation Department serving under the Common Pleas and Municipal Court Judges for one and a half years. During this time he has been a member of the department’s Surveillance Team and Intensive Supervised Probation Unit. Currently, he is an officer in the Regular Supervision Unit dealing with felony and misdemeanor offenders. Officer Kohrs also holds a Bachelor Degree in Criminal Justice.