Hello all,

First off, I apologize for the length but a lot has happened. This is in two parts due to character limits set by the forum. It's a fascinating story so please don't let the length deter you. What can a person do when a P.O. clearly has it out to get him and bends the rules in her favor to justify her actions? I am posting in regards to my brother who is having tremendous difficulty with his probation officer. It's gotten to the point where I'm questioning whether the treatment he is receiving is equitable and ethical. But I'll give some background information first.

Background Info
First off, my brother is a good person at heart. However, he has clinically been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder from young on and usually acts before thinking about the consequences of the actions. My brother's initial trouble started about 5 years ago when he was in his early 20's and he met a girl in an online chatroom who was under the age of 18. He did not know she was under 18 as she lied about her age (she admitted this). The case went to court. During the trial we came to find out that she has a record of seeking out "older" men on the internet because she has been to court for this before (as the victim of course). Apparently she has her own set of issues which might be why the judge decided to put my brother on probation for 3 years rather than any jail time. Assuming he makes it through the probation, he would receive nothing more than a misdemeanor. If his probation is revoked, he goes to jail and the charge is elevated to a criminal offense and he will be classified as a sexual predator. I want to interject here that even though she lied about her age, I am very ashamed and upset with my brother's judgment regarding this issue and in no way condone what he had done.

Incident 1
Unfortunately my brother initially didn't take is probation very seriously. His rules included items such as no alcohol, no internet, and no dating or sex without permission. He still went on the internet and met another girl - this time he made sure the girl was of age and even checked her ID - she was 19. They met and I think became sexually involved in some capacity. The girls father was upset with her for meeting a guy on the internet and decided researched my brother's name on the public court access website. Well of course he found out what he was on probation for and promptly called the cops. The probation officer had my brother arrested and immediately revoked is probation. She cited rule violation and deemed him a threat to society because the girl "looked young" and turned out to be bipolar. She actually held the fact that the girl was bipolar against my brother - as if he was able to diagnose her mental condition. My brother spent one full year in jail. Since he violated is rules, I expected him to be revoked. But I did find the comments in which the P.O. framed her statement as being "a threat to society" odd - that the girl "looked young" and the fact that she was bipolar.

Incident 2
My brother served his year in jail. He was on the Huber side for his last 3 months of his sentence, meaning he could leave jail for work. They also allowed him some extra time to look for apartments so he had somewhere to go once he left jail. In addition, he had to meet the P.O. at the probation office for a weekly meeting. After one of his meetings (three weeks prior to his release from jail), he had 30 minutes of unaccounted time from when he left the P.O. office to when he returned to jail. He was in the parking lot of the P.O. office the entire time and was seen there by his P.O. His best friend met him there to give him updates on the apartment hunting situation because he had a couple of good candidates to look into. My brother gave his friend instructions on which apartments to look further into and then when back to jail for the day. The P.O. stated that he did not have permission to have his friend show up and put him in lock-down for the last three weeks of his sentence. Because of this, he lost his job and was not able to secure an apartment prior to leaving jail.

Incident 3
My brother finally gets out of jail. He has a strong commitment not to violate any rules because he didn't deal with being in jail all that well. He frequently would break down sobbing and became very apologetic to his family for the trouble he has put them through. He was released on a Sunday morning with no where to go since three of his last four weeks were spent in lock-down. He asked is P.O. where he could stay while he searched for apartments and she told him the local Salvation Army. My mother called the Salvation Army on the day of his release and inquired about bringing my brother there, but the denied him because of his original conviction and the fact that they have children staying there. (Again, I can't stress enough that he is NOT a predator, but has been lumped into a stereo type because our system currently doesn't differentiate severity, however I do understand the Salvation Army's position and why they denied him). Now my brother is scared because he has no where to go and doesn't want to stay anywhere without approval. We decided his next step should be to call his P.O. but there was no answer. We considered all options. His entire family lives in an adjacent county and he's not allowed to move between counties without approval. His only good friend lives a few blocks away, but the P.O. has banned his friend from staying at the same place because back in high school they were drinking buddies. He could stay in his car until he gets a hold of his P.O. but it's the dead of winter and was 5 degrees F outside which is an inhumane expectation. Plus staying in a car could put him in an unapproved area of the city with a high population of children. As a family we decided that he should stay by his friend's house (who has no internet access and no alcohol in the house - we verified this by touring his apartment). We also had him call his P.O. again and leave a message stating that the Salvation Army won't take him and he has no where to go for the night so he'll be by his friend for the night at xxx address and will await her call back to instruct him where to go for the next night. The very next morning, the police were knocking on the door to arrest him. She sent him back to jail for violating the rule that he stayed at an unapproved place, EVEN THOUGH THE PLACE SHE TOLD HIM TO STAY AT WOULDN'T TAKE HIM (and she should have been fully aware that the Salvation Army wouldn't take him with his background). She took no responsibility, denied that my brother had called to inform her (even though we have phone records and two witnesses) and stated he's intentionally violating his rules again. This caused him to lose another job, which he only was able to hold for one week as he was forced to spend two weeks in jail prior to her releasing him.


Please See the Part 2 Threat for the rest of the story!

This is part two of the story. Please see Probation Officer Making it IMPOSSIBLE To Success - Part 1 for the first portion of the story.

Incident 4
His P.O. releases him after two weeks in jail. He finds another job rather quickly. This is fortunate as his bills are beginning to pile up and he needs to save for a safety deposit so he can get an apartment. He hasn't had a consistent source of income for quite some time due to all the things his P.O. is putting him through. He still doesn't have an apartment so his P.O. puts him in a halfway house. Now they put the bracelet on him so they can track when he leaves the apartment. He's rooming with another guy on probation and is under very heavy restrictions. He cannot just leave to go look for apartments. He needs to apply for permission to leave so he can go look. He was denied serveral times, but when he was given the chance to look for apartments, he made the best of it. In the mean time, his "roommate" seems like a troublemaker as he has been using my brother's cell phone and was eventually arrested for drinking. My brother was fearful that he would get accused of drinking too since he was forced to live with the guy, but nothing ever came of that. He finally found an approved apartment but was still required to wear the bracelet. The day that we moved him in, his P.O. stopped over for an inspection and searched the entire apartment and found everything to be acceptable. However, she grabbed his cell phone and saw he had been text messaging with it. She told him that he can't do that. He stated that he was not aware of that as it doesn't state it anywhere in his rules. Her response was, "Do I have to spell everything out for you?" The very next day the cops were at his door and he was sent to jail again. When he asked why, she responded that he was text messaging and that was considered internet access and she needs to investigate how he has been using his phone. First of all, text messaging is not internet access. The two technologies are completely different. That's a very poor attempt to stretch a rule in her favor. Secondly, she put him in jail so she can investigate his phone? Why can't she investigate without sending him to jail? He's on the bracelet and never violated it, so he isn't going anywhere. Now he lost ANOTHER job. While in jail, she asks him about some numbers on his phone. Apparently my brother had called a local dating service. He states he was very bored and lonely and was just looking for someone to talk to. And if things went well, he was hoping he could get to the point of meeting someone to develop a relationship with. Remember - his rules state he needs permission to meet someone. And he fully intends to comply with that if he gets to the point of meeting someone. At this point, he never did meet anyone and was in the early stages of talking to two people - both were older than him. His P.O. had a big issue with this. He stated he was just talking and she stated that he's pursuing a relationship and used this to keep him in jail a bit longer. Again, his rules only state he needs permission to meet someone and say nothing about needing permission to talk to the opposite member of sex over the phone. Admittedly, not very smart of my brother given the circumstances, but not wrong either.

Incident 5
After spending a few more weeks in jail, he is released. There's no official reason given as to why they put him in jail and what signaled his release. But once again, my brother finds another job in a short amount of time. He's still on the bracelet and all he really does is go to work and sit at his apartment. He's even afraid to pick up groceries or leave to do his laundry for fear that they'll find something to use against him. So he actually has his best friend do all his errand for him. Now everything appears to be smoothing over. He's out of jail and working for nearly a month. He is in no way breaking any rules. And he's just trying to get his life back. During the next P.O. search of his apartment, she decides to confiscate is cell phone. She states she never finished investigating his phone usage. One week passes and the cops show up AGAIN!! He works third shift so he was sleeping when the showed up and awoke as the pulled away. He called me at work clearly shaken. He's hyperventilating, crying in between sentences, and not able to speak without breaking down. Through his broken sentences, he asked me, "why are they doing this to me? I didn't do anything wrong. Since I've been out the first time, I haven't done anything intentionally wrong. I just want to go to work and come home like normal people without worrying that I violated some rule I was never told about." This really upset me. Right now, he's back in jail. The P.O.'s supervisor told him the reason they are putting him back is because they view him as a threat to society and they aren't finished investigating his phone. So basically, they're putting him back in for the same thing as one month earlier. Now the P.O. says he has a background on his phone that's a woman in a bikini. He admits this and said it's been on his phone for a long time and it's a Sports Illustrated picture and he has no idea how to remove it. She states that it's porn and concludes that he's clearly a threat to society. Again, not smart of him to leave that on his phone - BUT NOT WRONG. For crying out loud, a 10 year-old could walk to the local Wal-Mart and buy the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue if he wanted. Now we have no idea how long they will hold him. And of course, he lost ANOTHER job.

If you read through all of this, thank you. Any advice on how to deal with this would be appreciated. I'm not asking for sympathy for my brother's situation as I agree he should have paid a price for his stupidity. That price has now been paid and he's trying to become a productive member of society again. He's trying to hold a job and is doing EVERYTHING in his power to obey all of his rules. But his P.O. just won't let that happen. As I've stated, my brother is not the most intelligent person, nor does he think things through. But the one thing that's certain is that he's not trying to violate his rules. The P.O. is obviously taking the hard line here, and in my opinion, is even stretching rules as far as possible just to put him back in jail. I did some investigating and found that she used to be a social worker in charge of the children's division so there's probably some conflict of interest here. I personally think she's trying to put him away for a long time and by repeatedly putting him back in jail, she's building that case. What can we do? Can we get him transferred to the county his family lives in and have him move there? We want to see him succeed. We know that if he's left alone, he will succeed. This is taking a tremendous toll on his family as well. My mother doesn't sleep anymore and my dad is irate that they're "toying" with his life. If he was out there intentionally violating his rules, we all would have no problem with this as he would be creating the bed he sleeps in. But he's doing everything in his power not to violate rules, but yet they always make something up as a violation. This will be his 5th lost job because of all this and he's starting to break down. He has almost two more years of this to deal with - and that's assuming that they don't extend his probation. What can we do? For the sake of my brother's sanity and my family's well-being, what can we do? Am I off base here thinking she's over-stepping her boundaries?

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Hello Heids:

I'm still waiting for your story to get fascinating... It never did. I've heard it all before.

I'm not asking for sympathy for my brother's situation as I agree he should have paid a price for his stupidity No, you're not asking for sympathy for him. But, you ARE asking for sympathy for YOUR position, which is, your brother is the victim. I don't subscribe to that.

I personally think she's trying to put him away for a long time and by repeatedly putting him back in jail, she's building that case. You think she's trying to slam him?? Me too. That's what probation officers do. What surprises me, is that you thought she should or would do otherwise.

What can we do?
A transfer is called for – to another jurisdiction or another PO – it doesn't matter. Start building your own case, but don't do it from the point of view that the PO is wrong. Do it from the perspective that your brother is wrong, but needs another chance. Ask the PO for the written policies and procedures manual for her department. I'm sure that it has a section on how to transfer probation. Follow it. Do everything in writing.

IF, at this point, you are fearful of retaliation (and I would be), you're going to need an attorney to mount this challenge. Certainly, if he doesn't have anywhere to live, he can't afford an attorney. Can you?

excon

I promise to take some time this evening to review your post and try to help you with my advice.

Please advise me which State your Brother resides?

Regards,

BocaFlLawyer

Thanks for the response, excon. You bring up some interesting points. You clearly have had much experience dealing with the shady side the probation system. I have not, so forgive my ignorance to realize that being on probation is equivalent to giving up your rights as an American citizen. The more I research these types of issues, the more I realize that there really are no boundaries for these people to operation within. I was just surprised at the severe lack of a checks-and-balance system for these officers to operate within. They literally can ruin someone for something insignifiant or even semi-fabricated if they so choose. That's what I find scary. Paraphrasing their mission statement, they protect the public and help offenders integrate productively back into society. Well that's clearly a bunch of B.S. I will take your advice and look for procedures to transfer. I'm not worried about retaliation because I am quickly realizing that his doom is certainly immanent by standing here and doing nothing, so we have nothing to lose by pursuing a transfer. I truly believe his risk of an unnecessary probation extension is very high under her. She simply will do everything in her power to make sure he can not get up on his own two feet.

He resides in Wisconsin. Thank you for following up.

The PO is only following strict court rules, the fact is that his crime put him in jail and the judge put him on probation, if he is not or was not able to follow the probation rules, he has the choice or going to jail.

Sounds hard but that is just it.

The family can chip in and pay weekly rent for him somewhere in a flop house, There are various mens shelters he may have a place to go

And it is not, listen carefully not the probation officers job or worry to find him a place to go, this is his problem completely

It is obvious this PO is strict and believes contact with some people will cause him more trouble. He most likely has been told the rules but merely does not wish to follow the contact rules.

This sounds hard I know, but the truth is, it is not the PO job to do anything but make sure he follows every rule. Some PO are stricter than others.

As excon said, this is just how PO work, the most of the ones I have know are all about the same, they are not there to help your brother, they are there to enforce a big book of rules. Their job is to catch your brother doing something wrong and violate him,

Now with that said, most people on probation figure this out and never go back or get caught, the fact his is getting caught and going back

* and there is a hearing and he knows why each time he goes back, so when you say you don't know, you may not but he clearly knows why he is locked up every time.