Comments on: Absconding from Probation

By: curtis

curtis — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 13:23:03 +0000

did ur son have to go to prison after all of that

By: becraft

becraft — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:28:49 +0000

my son was in a severve car accident with head trauma and has perm brain damage he lost his home his job everything i contacted his po and left several mesages about this and she never returned my call,he called her when he was able to speak.and left messages she never called ,he receieved aletter from her that was forwarded to his dads new home that he got 2 months after his dad got it saying he needed to report ,he called her again and left a message he couldnt walk was still under medical care ,again nothing back from her he had concurrent sentance starting in 06 1 yr ,07 18 m ,08 1 year all concurrent to sentance number 1 which made his probation run out in april 09 he told her on her answer machine as soon as he got his settlement from insurance co he would finish paying what he owed ,i paid some for him,again no reply then in july of 09 she put him as absconder .so not all po do their job ,he did not abscond he was seriously injured in a car wreck that almost cost him his life.he has frontal lobe damage that will effect him the rest of his life.so not everyone that have been absconded are trying to hide ,this is a case where i know she was contacted and she did not call me back or him or his dad.so how did she abscond him when she was contacted about his situatuion,and his probation run out 3 months before she even filed the absconder on him .there are people who do abscond on purpose but there are some who do not but get put on there .there are some really good po s and there are some bad ones ,just like any job

By: Owen Strickland

Owen Strickland — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:02:36 +0000

As a former Probation Officer of 12 years, every case I violated for absconding included violations of several different conditions of supervision. In all of the cases that I completed a violation report on, I was prepared to testify to each step that I completed to ‘abscond’ the offender. Further, the requirements of DCC policy are known as well by the offender population as they are by the officers and leaders of DCC if not better understood. Therefore, if the offender has missed a curfew or appointment with the officer the imaginary clock (30 days, 14 days or 24 hours) starts. All they have to do is ‘reset’ the clock by calling the officer, ‘dropping in’ to see the officer without an appointment, or being home 1 time during curfew. What people don’t seem to understand is that offenders that abscond (probationers & post-releasees) are criminals of the highest order and they do not abscond by ‘mistake’. Offenders abscond because they can’t/won’t pay their fees/fines, the officer is doing contacts that impede criminal activity, the offender is using illegal drugs, or they do not want to be supervised in the first place. Absconding is also not taken seriously by the DCC leadership because once the case is violated for ‘absconding’ it becomes by nature a case that is not actively supervised. The primary goal of DCC is to deal with the ever increasing onslaught of new and recurring cases generated by the court system. DCC leaders will expound on a goal of ‘public safety’ but all officers really do is attempt to keep their collective heads above a tide of case after case and ‘stress’ over when one of their offenders is going to go out and kill someone. Sure , absconders are assigned to Surveillance Officers following the violation and warrant issuance but all they have time to do is a criminal records check or two a month, because they are also checking up on active offenders. The 12,000 absconders reported by DCC may actually be a low figure because who’s to know how many offenders are really actively avoiding being supervised and just ‘resetting the clock’ every so often.