WE CAN DO BETTER – Part 13
By Alan Miller, Candidate for Judge Superior Court II
Mission of probation must change
from seeking violations to making efforts towards rehabilitation
Probation violations are becoming
more and more common in our court system. This should not be a surprise, given
the sheer number of people and lengths of time some are on probation. However, one thing that seems to
have changed is the mission of the probation department. Article I, Section 18 of the Indiana
Constitution states: "The penal code shall be founded on the principles of
reformation, and not of vindictive justice." Over the past several years,
it would appear as though we have lost sight of this locally. Instead, the general mission appears
to have shifted from working with an individual towards rehabilitation and
successful completion of probation to making every effort to find violations of
probation.
Probation is a privilege, given to
one in lieu of jail or prison time. Some violations are very serious and should be treated as
such. However,
with increasing frequency, probation violations are being filed where an
individual has not or cannot pay their court and/or probation costs and fees or
has failed to keep an appointment with their probation officer. While these are still technical
violations of the rules, filing a probation violation, taking court time and
possibly incarcerating the individual do not seem productive, especially when
so many individuals are on probation for months and, more often than not,
years.
When elected, one of my first tasks
will be meeting with the court’s probation officers to confirm what should be
the direction of our mission.
This
is the thirteenth part of my platform statement; a detailed proposal for how to
improve our current justice system. It will be released over the next several
months through facebook.com/makeitmiller2012 and makeitmiller2012.com. PLEASE feel free to forward this to
your friends and family.
Thanks for your continued support!
Thanks for your continued support!
Alan
Miller
3 comments:
This is SMART!
Only today someone told of a probationer elsewhere (non violent) who went to the hospital for what sounded like high blood pressure or maybe a panic attack. He called to notify that he could not be to meet with Prob. officer that day, as he was ill in ER. Several calls were made to advise Prob. Officer of this, no one answered the phone. He left a message.
He was later arrested.
Not saying this sounds lame and there likely may be more to the story, but officer time used, jail used, and now he has to jump through hoops and will add work to the system to clear this. I don't know anything about any of it really, but with so many of these probs. seems like needs some overhaul.
I agree with Miller. This is a common sense approach. It does seem like all areas of the local justice system (especially in light of the Brewington fiasco) needs to reexamine their motives and the core mission of their offices.
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