Probation In The Spotlight

One of the worst-kept secrets in Massachusetts government is now made fully public, in excrutiating detail, by the Boston Globe Spotlight team -- the pathetic, bloated, malfunctioning patronage haven that is the state's probation system. Kudos to the Globe and its reporters for putting the pieces together.

Just very recently, I was talking with a significant political figure in the state about criminal-justice reform, and at one point I interrupted by asking, "because the Probation Department is a joke, right?" The person smiled sheepishly, reiterated that the conversation was not on the record, and then answered in the affirmative.

Governor Deval Patrick, who has literally been fighting the state legislature on this (and similar patronage havens in the courts) since his first months in office, went on the record with me about it two months ago (emphasis added):

THE PHOENIX Are there other pieces of re-organization — you were able to reorganize the cabinet — but are there others that you have not been able to accomplish?

PATRICK ...There's one pending right now that's sensitive, and that is probation and parole.... Parole is in the executive branch, and probation is in the judicial branch. That is unusual. In most states, probation and parole are together, and in the executive branch. And the reason for that is that you want a step-down program. Remember that 95 percent or more of the people in prison come out. Right now, I think it is fair to say many of them come out more dangerous than when they went in, because they don't have facilities anymore or on large scale to step-down gradually — this is the term of art, step-down — step down gradually back into mainstream society. You do that through a combination of probation and parole. You're nodding your head, you understand this already.

THE PHOENIX One area of reform that hasn't happened is what you're talking about now — the whole criminal-justice system, the corrections and probation — and it seems like, what's likely to happen in this session is perhaps CORI [Criminal Offense Record Information] reform and maybe some sentencing reform. But is this an area where you're going to try to get that reform, whether it's this year or next session? And what needs to be included? How expansive?

PATRICK Oh, absolutely. You bet your life. I think the probation and parole consolidation is important. We got the predicate part of this, which is having the sheriffs a part of the unified executive — because they have an incredibly important role in this. So it's not like no steps have happened. We're making some progress.

I think probation is going to be hard for this legislature, because probation has been a patronage haven. It's the least transparent agency, to the point where if you ask them for data, they just don't give it to you. I mean, it's extraordinary. It's not accountable. I'm sure they're not all bad people, I'm not saying they're bad people, I'm just saying, they aren't accountable to anybody, and a lot of public money goes in there, and it's very hard to tell how it gets spent. I don't think that's the way it's supposed to be. So, I think there are reasons for good government, there are reasons for better programming, there are reasons for savings to do that.

Even short of putting probation under the executive, there are changes that could be made. Just last week, the state senate once again rejected Patrick's budget plan of consolidating the trial courts into a single line item, which would be a big step in the right direction -- the different parts of the court system would be dependent on, and thus responsive to, Chief Justice Mulligan's office, rather than the legislature, for their funding. 

The Globe report is going to put a lot of heat on the legislature to do something. As of the past week or two, nobody I talk to on the subject thought an kind of serious reform was possible, certainly not this year and probably not after the election either. It will be interesting to see what Patrick does to use this Globe report to change the odds.