Summary/synthesis of what I learned
The goal of the probation program is to help offenders to change for the better and to maintain that change. The probation program also works to ensure communities remain safe even while offenders are given a chance to re-integrate. The mission of probation is to ensure public safety through motivating offenders to change and to lead lives that are free of crime. The mission is achieved via the re-integration of offenders back into their communities, monitoring the offenders, supervising and controlling the offenders, and ensuring the offenders are re-entering in positive and safe environments where they can stay crime-free.

Offenders are usually monitored in various ways to ensure they are living crime-free lives and that they are truly reformed. Some of the ways include getting their telephone and mobile contacts for communication, visiting them at home, carrying out urine screens, referring them to substance abuse therapy or mental health counselling, and so on. During my time as an intern, I ended up performing a number of important tasks that I did not expect to perform in my internship. My tasks mainly involved providing assistance and support for offender community services, sex offender treatment, offender substance abuse treatment, and offender reintegration. I also helped offenders with housing and court costs. My main responsibility in my internship position was to provide assistance and support to probation officers so that they could effectively carry out their duties. This means sometimes I could help with the management of some cases, for example, through conducting interviews with offenders to find out their progress with finding housing, getting jobs, and any issues or challenges they are facing.

When I was just starting out in my internship position, I got assigned to a sex offender probation officer. She was a hardworking officer whom I was tasked to help. She had a total of 32 offenders to supervise. The fact that the only other sex offender probation officer took a leave around the time I started by internship, meant that I got more responsibilities and tasks to handle at the office. I believe this really helped me get the right first-hand experience. As time went on, I got assigned to handle other tasks at the probation office. I worked with officers handling the cases of different types of offenders and I usually managed to handle the tasks that they assigned to me.

I got to enjoy my time as an intern because at the probation office I worked with different types of people handling different types of tasks and cases. The people I worked with really helped me to gain the type of first-hand experience I was going for, while the different types of tasks and offender cases enabled me to know how they are handled professionally. I also got to understand several different processes and advantageous skills that I believe I would be very useful later in my career. I believe I was quite lucky to get internship at the office as it gave me an opportunity to learn new skills and to practice what I have learned in class.

Some of the specific tasks I handled at the probation office included visiting the homes of the offenders with senior probation officers, attending court hearings for offenders under the office’s supervision, contacting employers and community members regarding offenders under the offices supervision, helping write probation reports, meeting with offenders at the office, conducting urine screens, and interviewing offenders through the phone. My internship position was such that I was allowed to make independent decisions and to handle many tasks under minimum supervision. This is because the office was very busy with all the officers having a lot of tasks and responsibilities to handle every day. In a bid to understand the working environment better, I conversed with some of the officers at the office and they told me that at times they get a lot of work that they have to work weekends or past their regular shifts. This has somewhat affected the work-life balance of the officers causing many of them to be stressed and to have relationship strains.

Outcome of internship

Intake

Those who are in sex offender therapy are individuals who have been designated as sex offenders by the justice system after being charged and found guilty of a crime of sexual nature. There are also some cases where people who have been identified to be at-risk to sexually abuse voluntarily enter sex offender therapy to deal with that risk. This normally involves individuals making appointments for treatment because they have either sexually harmed others or believe that they have that risk. Sex offender therapy is treatment available for juveniles, female adults, and male adults. Normally, the treatment is provided separately for females and males. There are special therapies or treatments for juveniles who have sexual behavior issues or problems. Generally, treatment approaches for younger children and adolescents differ from those used for adults. Treatment is often commences with specialized therapists or treatment providers first conducting an evaluation to find out whether treatment will be useful and what type of approach will be most appropriate to utilize.

A treatment approach may involve conversing with a client to establish rapport, providing the client with information about the treatment plan and what is expected of them, and a discussion of the sanctions or penalties should the client fail to follow the treatment plan. Normally, the evaluation is conducted face-to-face with the clients. However, sometimes videos or printed documents are used.

Usually, intake to the sex offender therapy program is considered at the pre-sentencing stage investigations. These investigations are meant to provide presiding judges with comprehensive information about the offender including their prior criminal history, mental health status, medical status, financial status, family status, strengths, special circumstances surround their case, and disposition recommendations meant to balance community safety needs, victim needs, offender needs, and offender accountability. Generally, the investigations are conducted by community supervision officers who are trained and have experience in...…and provides an opportunity for enforcement functions.

Limitations

Sex offender supervision has a singular general model

The lack of official policies for supervising sex offenders has led to the development of several policies that detail the minimum standards for the management and supervision of offenders. Some of the key standards and practices in the policies include:

· Each sex offender should be closely monitored at Level II of supervision for at least the first 6 months.

· Supervision level should not fall below Level III expect when the treatment is declared complete.

· Sexual offender officers should routinely or monthly contact treatment providers serving the offenders they are supervising to get the latest.

· Sexual offender officers should routinely visit and observe treatment groups for offenders under their care.

· Polygraph tests should be conducted occasionally as recommended by supervisor or treatment provider.

While the above standards and practices in lieu of official supervision guidelines are helpful, they do not encourage an individualized approach to supervision. So they are more offense-based and not risk-need based. This makes them less effective and less likely to have a significant effect on recidivism especially when compared with evaluation-driven supervision strategies.

Caseload sizes are sometimes not in agreement with the purpose for specialized caseloads

What is very important for the effective management of caseloads is the need to make sure that the supervision officers only have caseloads that they can effectively handle. That they have limited caseloads that help them to find the time and the resources they need to:

· Connect and to maintain good collaborative ties with treatment providers, therapists, victim advocates, law enforcement, polygraphers, and so on so that they can effectively discharge their duties.

· Create and build partnerships with communities so that they can help sex offenders find employment and housing.

· Better educate communities and the general public about the parole program and how to help.

· Regularly evaluate the risk factors faced by sex offenders.

· Offer specialized supervision in cases where they deem fit.

However, the officers and senior officers at the parole and probation bureau acknowledge that supervision officers have huge caseloads that make it difficult for them to effectively discharge their duties. They also acknowledge that the high caseloads increase the likelihood of officers burning out.

Specialized training is reportedly lacking for P&P officers who supervise sex offenders.

Perhaps the biggest limitation for probation and parole officers is that they lack specialized training. Sex offender specialists should typically by officers who have undergone intense training in sex offender management and have had the chance to work under the supervision of more experienced officers to improve their capacity to provide effective management and supervision of sexual offenders. However, many sex offender specialist officers have in the past expressed concerns about lack of adequate training and about lack of time to prepare to carry out their special duties. Indeed, some of them have in the past reported having no special training; just general training same as other…