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No Life Experience Needed

I sat in the hallway outside a jail visitation room trying not to listen to the conversation going on inside the room. I really didn’t want to eavesdrop. I just wanted to get in and get out. I had three more visits before the day was over and couldn’t do my visit while the room was occupied.

Inside, a probation officer was interviewing a defendant for a presentence report. He pled guilty, and she was getting information for the judge who was going to sentence him. She wasn’t very good at keeping the volume of her voice at a reasonable level and kept saying “okidokie” to the guy’s responses. She was probably in her late twenties, and she was overweight. She had a social worker look about her. Her straight red hair was pulled back in a very tight ponytail. She was wearing black capri pants (“shpants,” as my sister calls them) and a lime green tee shirt.

When she asked the defendant about his past drug use, it was apparent that she didn’t have the slightest idea about recreational drugs. She asked him if he’d ever smoked crack, and he said yes. Then, she asked him if he’d ever used cocaine. His response of “uh…yeah…I said I smoked crack” might as well have been “c’mon you moron, crack is a form of cocaine you smoke.” He was irritated at her for not knowing.

He was going to prison for a burglary charge, and he had a significant criminal history. He had an explanation for why he did what he did. He had a sad life story. She responded with lots of okidokies and very little sympathy.

At the end of the interview, she asked him a series of questions to which he was only allowed to answer yes, no, or maybe. Here are some of the ones I recall:

Would most people commit crimes if they thought they could get away with it?
Is society to blame for most crime?
Do you agree that a person should do whatever it takes to make money?
Do you feel you’ve been treated fairly?

She also asked him these two questions:

True or false: schoolteachers just like having power over students?
True of false: police officers just like having power over people?

I would have failed her test. Whatever she was seeking, I doubt I could’ve given it to her. My presentence report would’ve said I had a bad attitude, no respect for authority, or maybe something worse.

I believe most people would commit crimes if they thought they could get away with it. Look at speeding. There are laws against speeding, yet almost every single person on the freeway speeds. The government tells us speeding is dangerous. People all seem to agree that speeding puts others in jeopardy, yet everyone complains about speeding tickets when they’re caught. People think they can get away with speeding, so they do it. Believing it’s a safety issue, they put safety second to convenience. Their convenience. Other people’s safety. If people thought they could get away with more, I think they’d give it a try.

I also believe society is to blame for most crime. A lot of people have it bad. They never had a chance. It’s largely society’s fault. Most of my clients have had bad home lives, traumatic life events, and terrible mental or physical difficulties. All of my clients have at some point been mistreated, marginalized, or ignored altogether by society.

As for the third question, if money is the only thing that can assure that someone survives, whatever-it-takes might be exactly what’s in order. The guy being interviewed may have burglarized a home to feed his family. He also may have done it because he has no respect for other people and their property. Yes, no, and maybe can’t possibly answer such a complex question. The question isn’t fair.

The last yes, no, or maybe question might have been the worst. Nobody’s treated fairly in our system. The state indicts in secret. Prosecutors overcharge. Laws are too broad, and mandatory minimums are too common and too harsh. Priors long past follow people to their graves. Defendants are pushed through the system like cattle. There’s nothing fair about it.

Finally, there are a lot of schoolteachers who just like having power over students. There are a lot of police officers who just like having power over people in general. True or false can’t possibly answer either of those questions.

After the probation officer finished, she shuffled past me with a faint smile on her face. I caught a glimpse of the defendant in the visitation room. He was grizzled, with a glass eye and scars everywhere. He was rail thin and had a head of curly black hair. I looked back at the probation officer. She waited impatiently to get buzzed out of the jail hallway while fiddling with her ponytail.

The stupid questions and the stark contrast between the probation officer and the defendant made a strong impression. She shouldn’t be in a position to report on him. He’s experienced things that she can’t even fathom. I’d guarantee it.

I imagine the probation officer sitting in her office, surrounded by bric-a-brac as she types up a report about that man’s antisocial personality and escalating drug use. A judge will read what she writes and commit a fellow human being to state custody for a term of years. The judge may have struggled less in his or her life than the probation officer.

What kind of sick, twisted system do we have where the coddled get to judge those among us who’ve had real life experiences?

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3 Responses to "No Life Experience Needed"

  1. BFrederick says:

    Great post Matt. No further commentary needed.

  2. Ches says:

    I have had so many similar experiences during jail visits. I can’t tell you how many of these people don’t need an extensive prison sentence, they need a case-worker. They don’t need a PSI, they need somebody who’ll listen while they talk. They don’t need one more person to see them through the social filter of criminal conviction, they just need somebody–for once–to give a good goddamn about them as a person. It doesn’t fix everything, obviously, but until there’s a heavy injection of rehabilitative impulse into our CJ system, I don’t know how we can expect anything but repeat offenders. They spend enough time in the system that it becomes all they know, and in between incarcerations they have kids who are of necessity born into a terrible situation and are incredibly likely to just feed themselves directly into the culture of serial imprisonment.

    So depressing… Bring on the (tailored and appropriate) education, the (keen and concerned) mental health professionals and the (caring and competent) social workers.

  3. Caitlin says:

    Matt… i couln’t agree more. But for slightly different reasons. Pre-sentence investigations/reports can be invaluable tools. If done compassionately and by someone who can try to put aside bias. Having worked in a probation office as a victim advocate they could give incredible insight to the why’s and hows of someones offense and life experience. But many of them were horrendously typed, and clearly done in a rush. I was always interested in doing them myself… i thought many times the important questions werent asked or elaborated on, and there wasnt enough effort put into completing them fairly (lots of could not reach this person, after only one attempt). I think people are so much more then the crime they commit, as are victims so much more then the crime that happened to them.

    I can honestly say i hated the behavior of the sex offenders i worked with… but many of them came from places so dark, and their own abuse so extensive, it was hard to imagine a different outcome. Similarly some victims life histories were so gruesome, it seemed a miracle that worse hadnt been done to them, simply due to what they had been exposed to and surrounded by. You cant get those answer from yes no or maybe. And certainly not true or false.

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