My husband has gotten the probation officer from hell and I should know because even I have been threatened by this woman and I am the supposed victim. He and I both want him to just fulfill the terms of his probation and get on with our lives but within ethical reason. My husband works between 12 and 16 hours a day Monday through Friday and makes $80,000 a year to support our five children and me plus goes to a university to better himself so he can get a better job where he doesn't have to work so hard and can spend more time with us, he is close to getting two degrees, one in mathematics and the other in computer science so this isn't some flunky criminal who sits on his butt. This probation officer let him know on their first meeting that she wasn't happy the judge gave him probation when she had requested jailtime and is going out of her way to prevent him from fulfilling his probation by lying about his attempts to contact either her or the counseling intake. She is now trying to cause him to lose his job by telling the intake woman to only give him the option of going to counceling every Tuesday for a year, despite them having Saturday appointments in a few weeks. Going on any weekday would require him taking that specific day off work, if he does that he will be fired from a job he has had for twenty years and everything we have ever worked for will be destroyed, when told this her response was that she didn't care, that was his responsibility and she wasn't going to give him permission to wait for Saturdays, that probation wasn't suppose to be easy and he either took the Tuesdays or go to jail. There is much more to this woman's unethical and threatening behavior this is only the surface. Can she do this legally? Any info or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

JimGunther

I have been a probation officer for seven years and, beleive me, if you are really having that kind of problems with a probation officer you need to sit down and have a long talk with that person's supervisor. In my state, if a person is having problems fulfilling the conditions of their probation that cannot be worked out with the probation officer, such as scheduling conflicts with work and counseling sessions, the probationer is free to write the judge and advise them what is happening.
I can't imagine a probation officer that would want to make a probationer fail at probation because this causes them to do more paperwork to report the violation, but hey, there are bad apples in every crowd.

The Bush basher in the previous post suggests that probation officers are there to "make sure you violate", but this guy has an obvious chip on his shoulder and again, probation officers don't like to make more work for themselves....They want every one to suceed on probation with as little hassle as possible.. Talk to the probation officer's supervisor and write the judge.

magprob

Yes, as in every vocation of life, there are people that just can't handle the power that is put into their hands. If what you say is true, then i would say this probation officer is truly acting inappropriate...to say the least. If I am not to late in my reply, I would say to contact your lawyer and have him file a motion before the judge. When you get there, have the judge order the treatment on the saturday and any other orders specificly.
As a Probation Officer, my intrest was merely to satisfy the order of the court as quickly as possible without any new crimes being commited in the meantime. It really is not hard to get along with people if you can first get along with yourself...or be comfortable within yourself. So many of these officers of the law have no real life experiance so they feel the only way to get anything done is by throwing their weight or power around. I worked as a prison gaurd for 10 years before becoming a probation officer so I had some real people experiance. That just made it all so easy!

Fr_Chuck

Can a probation officer make your life hell, yep

Can they twist the truth, and find reasons to try to send you back. Yep

But they can merely have you picked up and go to a hearing but still ruin your life.

You need to go talk to the supervisor over that probation department.
Now I also know there are always two sides to a story, so the officer may have a different view on it.

But they should try to work with a person who is holding a job. But then they also can't see every person on thier book on Saturday, and those who have been on probation for longer may get preference to Saturday times. So you need to talk to a supervisor or report on the days they say or you are in violation

tsunrise

My husband has only been on probation for 2 months of a 42 month sentence, and his probation is already hell! He plead guilty to distribution of nudity. The law he "broke" has to do with taking photos and posting them withhout permission. He only plead guilty because he has a prior felony from years ago. He posted topless photos of an ex-girlfriend in a Yahoo profile that she posed for him when they were together. She was stalking him and instead of getting a restraining order, he decided to get back at her. The courts gave him probation with conditions of not contacting the victim or making any websites of her. They did NOT consider him a sex offender. His attorney said he's not a sex offender. The courts said we could have our computers back after the hearing. My husband goes on down to the probation office and they put him on sex offender rules, even though he was not ordered to be a registered sex offender. He now can't have contact with children, he can't go to the mall or to the park with our daughters. I had to sign a chaperone contract. We can't have our computers. He was even told he has to get rid of his picture phone (no internet hookup). He can't even leave the county to go to dinner without prior permission. We both have plead with them that this was a revenge motivated crime, but they insist it was a sexually motivated crime. He has to take sex offender classes now. And the kicker of it is, they DON'T care about his job. He will take the classes. My husband's job is seasonal, so he has plenty of time during the winter to take the classes, but once spring is here, he can work 10-12 hours a day. He can't take off early every Monday to go to these classes, his boss won't put up with it too long. She said she doesn't care. Yet if he loses his job, then they will be all over him to get a job. And because he is a felon, it's not too easy to get a good paying job. We own our own home. I have an excellent job with the County, but I can't afford it on my own. My husband is a working, tax-paying citizen that made a dumb mistake, yet he is being lumped into a group of people that molest children, rape, etc. We were going to take it back before the judge, but because of finances and the fact that the DA is threatening him with other charges because of what they think they found on his computer (which is not true and they destroyed the hard drives before the appeal time and without a court order) we don't know what else we can do. Yes, we can make a grievance to her supervisor, but who will the supervisor stick up for? I guess we can try to write the judge, but my guess is, it won't get us anywhere, either. I actually work for the same system, and I am embarrassed to say that I do now. Now I can see why the felons in my case load ended up failing. The system sets them up to fail. My husband is remorseful for what he did, but the punishment is not fitting the crime. It is very apparent it is up to the officer's discretion what is done. He is on his 2nd PO (first one left to be a police officer, god forbid). And they both are treating this case totally differently. What they do does not facilitate rehabilitation.

magprob

Hi tsunrise! If the court (judge) stated in court that your husband is not a sex offender and is not required to attend the treatment and such required of a sex offender, then the court transcripts will reflect that. Get a copy of the transcripts and read them very carefully. You will then have a clearer understanding, better than your memory can produce. Court day is very stressfull and people get things confused quite often. Now, if the transcripts do in fact say what you believe them to say, you may have more than one option. One, have your attorney file a motion or request a hearing for cause, to go before the judge and present evidence that the probation office is overstepping their bounds and to clarify the judgment. Now, prior to doing that, you may take the manuscript to the probation supervisor first and see if that will give you some relief. That is if you think they can be the least bit resonable! Before any thing though, get the manuscript and read it carefully. Then let me know if I can be of further assistance. One way or the other, you can get it straight!

tsunrise

Thanks for the advice. My husband wants to do what he needs to do to get through this withhout any problems. He's definitely learned his lesson and he knows what he did was not right, but it was not sexually motivated. We have already paid a private therapist for his assessment and he stated he did not have a problem, but he still wanted him to come to him for short term therapy (but not sex offender therapy). His P.O. was told this but he still termed it as S.O. therapy. My husband refused to go back to this therapist because we feel it's just a way for him to make his $70.00 per hour and he knows his clients are made to attend. (So now he will take the group S.O. therapy through D.O.C. until that therapist decides if he is or not a sex offender). But I think because D.O.C. believes he is a sex offender, regardless of what the courts ordered, they will not let up on him until he admits he is a sex offender and that he has a problem. They told him to show remorse and admit his "boner" mistake (their exact words, real professional and not appropriate in this situation). No normal person will admit they are something they don't believe or feel they are! And everyone involved in my husband's life and people who don't even know him but know of his "crime" say he's not a sex offender. He just made a stupid mistake based on revenge. And besides, most people believe if someone poses for photos, the photos belong to the person who took them. I still can't understand how D.O.C. can over-ride what the courts ordered! I work with court orders on a daily basis and we have to follow them to the "T". I think we will get a copy of the transcript and show it to the P.O. and put in a grievance if they don't do anything about it. If that doesn't work, we will write the Judge. A motion to go before the judge is out of the question at this point in time because of a couple of issues. Unless you're rich and can afford to keep paying an attorney, the average joe doesn't have a chance with the courts! I wish the probation officers in Wisc. were more like you! Understanding how life, reality is sometimes....from life's experience's, not from a text book or what their training brained washed them with. Thanks again for taking the time out to write!

jalfaro37

Hi there, I am going through the same situation here in WI. Did you resolve this issue? Can you offer some advice to me? I was told to follow sex offender rules because of my charge of prostitution for asking a woman what she would do for $500, nothing physically happened. Now I am told I have to follow sex offender rules. Did you file a request to have a hearing with the Judge? I also have chlidren and we are expecting another. This is so wrong how the probation officers in Wisconsin abuse their positions

N0help4u

I agree with Magprob if the Judge said he is not a sex offender then they are unduly harassing him because of their own personal disdain of what he did. You need to do as the others have said -let the Judge know everything that is going on.
Talk to your lawyer about this too, I don't know if he could get something on them about harassment or violating his rights but it is worth asking your lawyer.
There are two sides to every story but some peoples sides are often too lame to consider.
I think their only side is they are lumping your husband into a group instead of looking at the circumstances individually. It is unprofessional of them to mishandle his case like this.
Maybe the Judge will reassign him a different probation officer.