How probation officers—criminal legal system’s most diverse group—experience their roles

Probation agents – who oversee nearly 4 million people in the United States – are among the most visible faces of the criminal legal system (CLS). A new study by the assistant professor of the UCONN School of Social Work Sukhmani Singh focuses on how probation agents undergo their roles within CLS.

Published in Feminist criminologyThe study is based on in-depth interviews with 27 front-line and supervision probation agents in a big city in the northeast, 71% of women and 67% black. Singh and his colleagues at the University of Reading, New York University and Vanderbilt University have used intersectionality as a framework to analyze the prospects of the largest and most diverse workers in the criminal legal system. They considered how the roles of breed, sex and work shaped the experiences of officers.

Their results reveal three themes.

Probation as “minor”

The police systematically described their role as marginalized in relation to the authority of judges, prosecutors and the police. They declared that they feel undervalued, underpaid and often rejected as “social workers”, even if their work required higher references and included significant risks.

Unlike the police, probation agents can search a house, a car or a person without mandate; Demand that customers share private and personal information about their employment, their relationships and their finances; submit probation violation reports; and maintain regular contact with probationaries.

However, their authority was often minimized. “I do not think they necessarily consider us law forces,” said Janice, a front -line officer. “I think they see us more as social work … I don’t think respect is still there.”

Another officer, Kenneth, has echoed that many people in the community “see us as social workers” and even “the global police think that we are hugs.

In the wider context of CLs, all probation agents have argued that they did not have the power to produce systemic changes, because this power was largely liable with judges and district prosecutors, Singh explains: “In addition, probation agents also shared by feeling subordinate to the police. They estimated that the community had granted them less authority than the police.”

The criminal legal system is a manifestation of societal racial oppression

Probation agents were also the most demographically diversified group within the workforce of the criminal legal system. Throughout the race and sex, all officers identified the system as an extension of societal racism. They underlined the disproportionate police of black and brown communities, disparities in determining the racialized conviction and the reality which – even as probation officers – they themselves remained vulnerable to racial profiling.

“Even as a probation officer, we are all very aware that we are first black,” said Melissa, a front -line officer, describing how she is still worried during traffic stops. “I hope I went to my badge to show [the police officer]. “”

A black supervision officer, Marcia, underlined how the judges – who have the most power and are disproportionately – are disconnected from the overvalued communities. Consequently, she said: “Punishment [decreed by the judge] Does not correspond to the crime … These judges, some of them, do not care; They are as if you did not live in my neighborhood, I don’t care. “”

The limits of diversification

The team’s search also highlights a broader lesson: the diversification of the workforce alone is not sufficient to make the criminal legal system more just.

“Systems reproduce – that’s the point,” says Singh. “We have noticed a diversification in the criminal legal system, but this occurred mainly in the services sector, in the roles that deal directly with poor customers and colored communities. These jobs are lowering a salary and a lower prestige, even if they require the most intensive work. Meanwhile, the power remains concentrated in legal ranks and legal proceedings, which are extremely white.”

“Diversification can be a response to white supremacy,” she said. “But if this only happens to the lowest levels of a system, then the oppression structures remain intact. We must ask: in which type of society do we want to live?”

Probation amplifies these contradictions. Women of color now constitute a large part of the workforce, but they are concentrated in undervalued positions and remain the most exposed to the inequalities of the system. When probation was dominated by white men, notes Singh, the work brought more money, status and authority.

Listening carefully to probation agents, maintains Singh, helps to reveal how systems support themselves: “Diversification alone is not a transformation – and this is as true for the criminal legal system for any other institution.”

Argue for their customers

In this landscape, the Singh team found sexospecific differences in the way the officers have sailed on their roles. Many women officers have practiced what researchers call for “resistant care” – advocating for customers, providing transparency on rights and connection of people to resources – in order to deactivate system harm.

“These officers know that they do not have the power to change structural racism in the system,” says Singh, “but they try to humanize probation in small ways for the people they supervise. At the same time, they recognize that their own work is undervalued in a way that reflects the racialized and sexual hierarchy of the system itself.”

Elizabeth, a first -line white officer, noted that probation work today is less punitive than it was in the past.

“It has always been very personal-it’s almost a mission to me,” she said. “Our customers are our fathers, our mothers, our aunts, our uncles … Most of the time, we have links with these people and we let them go into a circle.”

Alicia, a Latina officer, underlined to customers: “I’m not here to find you guilty … I’m here to make the supervision”, while ensuring that the judges knew when customers succeeded.

Sylvia, an American officer, said that her role was to “plant a seed” thanks to an individual plea: “I helped people who are 40 years old, 50.

Sukhmani Singh is a psychologist applied to the development community and a member of the Father’s Father for Affiliation of the Center of UCONN on Community Security, Police and inequalities at the School of Law.