Too many cases, too few officers

Division Chief Carlos Concha expects the new auditing program he put in place in July will help ensure that officers make all required contacts with offenders.

Supervisors will audit officers monthly, checking each case to be sure that contacts are current.

"If the community expects we know every move 24 hours a day, we don't have that ability," Concha said. "We are providing public safety adequately. What is adequately? Is adequately no crime?"

Still, the public does expect Parole and Probation to know what its assigned offenders are doing and how well they are adjusting to being members of society, Assemblyman Bernie Anderson told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

"What we would like to see is that Parole and Probation be the ones yanking the offenders back - not the county sheriffs or city police responding after they've harmed someone," said the Sparks Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

The Legislature began paying attention to parole and probation in 1995, after parolee Donald Cameron killed Sparks Police Officer Larry Johnson. But Anderson said the state hasn't gone far enough: It needs to make more realistic caseloads for officers and provide some mechanical improvements, including a radio system and computerized files.

"It seems to me that we're not giving them the support they need to do the job," Anderson said.

Parole and Probation is losing a numbers game. The division's workload adds around 200 new cases every month through offenders released from prison. This year, the Legislature dropped the offender-to-officer ratio to 70-1, a figure many officials in the criminal justice system think needs to drop more.

"There are too many people to supervise and not enough people to supervise them," Washoe District Court Judge Brent Adams said. "And the result is an increased risk to the community."

Adams said the division cannot be blamed for the actions of offenders, but the department does need to meet its own guidelines.

"A probation officer should know what the supervised is doing, how they're doing, and if they are compliant," Adams said.

archive