 We had been talking about in our discussions here before the broadcast was that you just need to be really careful about how you define success and making sure that you define your expectations appropriately since you're dealing with folks who've had to come a long way to get where they are and have a long way to go and you don't want to set the bar too high as some of our previous panelists have said. So Danny, what's your reaction to these comments? Well that's absolutely true that success will be measured offender to offender and you look at realistic goals but to get an overall picture in West Virginia Southern we do gather those stats monthly as to how many folks are employed, how many folks do have at least a high school education or GED and then we compare them to the state statistics. So that does give us a gauge in how we're doing and our goal is always to beat the state statistics and fortunately we're doing that. Brian, reactions? In Southern District Test the cognitive skill training we don't have any statistical information but basically word of mouth feedback from our colleagues. The offender upon entering the R&R program is thinking differently, is acting differently, not as confrontational during office visit. He appears to be making some changes. The offender himself saying you know I didn't really accept this program from the beginning but I really think that I can benefit from the tools that are being taught and that they will use it and they will take care, they will do the exercises, they will participate in the role play and you can see the positive change. So our success is based upon what the offenders are saying to us, what they're saying to their officers supervision and what that officer is saying to us is making us believe that we have a successful program. So you need to actively listen to what's going on with the offenders and make sure that they are hanging with the program. Very interesting. New York Western, anything further to add? Anything that hasn't been touched on, again I guess, this is Colleen by the way, I would just emphasize that the people who are running whatever the program is, if there's not a personal commitment on their part then the program isn't going to fly because if there's one thing our offenders do really well is they read people and if they're reading that people are there just going through the motions and not really committed to helping them change or improve their lives then the program is just not going to work. I think that that is a really good place to leave it because ultimately this is a program that's about the offenders and defendants if we're in a pretrial setting and by the way I know that there are pretrial employment assistance programs, in fact I believe Jackie Peoples gave me a call earlier and has written an article in federal probation on setting up a pretrial services employment assistance program. So let's just leave it there, I can't really get anything better than that so thank you Colleen, thank you panelists. Once again it's time to sum up so let's take a moment to review what we've discussed as we move around to get ready for our last panel. Before we get to our final segment my understanding is that we've got a phone call on the line Pamela from New York, Pamela are you with us? Hi, it's me again. Hi, how are you? I just wanted to add to the previous segment when you were talking about influencing the offenders. Here at Southern District New York we also ran groups where we had offenders who were actually successful come in and discuss you know the avenue, the roles that they took to overcoming their obstacles and I don't know we just found when we had like the motivational type group settings where they talk, they fed to one another, they actually encouraged each other when they were when they presented negative attitudes and we found that was a lot, it was very beneficial in making the offenders move forward because they saw someone like themselves who had also done time, who had also had the same hindrances and they succeeded in you know whatever job whether it was medical, whether it was labor, you know technological, it didn't matter but it was very helpful I just wanted to add that as a good part of any type of employment training program to bring the success stories back in to talk to the offenders. I'm glad you raised that point if only because back in the clip particularly the Texas Western Probation clip we saw one of the offenders talking about the level of distrust that exists between offenders and probation officers and how that has to be overcome and maybe this is one way of having them overcome that so I really appreciate your calling and making that point you really sort of helped sum it up very well. Alright we're going to move on to the final panel. This final segment is Mitigating Life Skills Related Conflicts. Danny Kuhn is still here from our last panel and is now joined by Scott Balak US Probation Officer from the District of Nevada. Welcome Scott. We're going to show you as we've done in the past a brief video vignette to help focus our discussion. US Probation Officer Keith Johnson receives a phone call from Gina Scott the adult daughter of convicted felon Steven Scott. Steven is not married and served 12 months for a single charge of telemarketing fraud he has been on supervision now for four months Hello Officer Johnson speaking. Hello Officer Johnson This is Gina, Gina Scott. You were assigned to my father Steven. Last week you know the phone swindling thing. Yes I know Steven what's wrong? You've got to do something. We really got into it this morning. I can't take him anymore. Okay now just take a deep breath start over from the beginning and tell me what happened. You know that I live with my father right? Well it's like we're living in the dark ages. He never pays the electricity the power's always going out and it's not like he doesn't have the money. You know he has a steady job I swear I've had it with him. Did you say you had some kind of fight? We always fight over money only this morning as I was telling him for the umpteenth time to get over to the power company and pay the bill he starts in on me I mean if I hadn't left who knows what would have happened. Sounds pretty serious now Gina are there any other problems what else is going on He never pays any bills or in those rare instances when he does they're never on time and then we have bill collectors calling us. Can't you do something? You said if we ever had a problem to call well I'm calling. And I'm glad you did Gina look I'll try to meet with your dad today to discuss it. Now where can I reach you if I need to? Fighting with your daughter Steven I know you and Gina aren't always like this. What's going on? Well we never did get along when it comes to money. She don't think I can handle it. Steve I have to tell you fighting with your daughter having your utilities turned off repeatedly and dodging bill collectors aren't exactly good signs. Things like this could spin out of control. Well I guess I just forget and then by the time I remember it's either too late or I spent my paycheck on something else. Okay let me suggest this. Why don't we get everyone together. You, Gina, me and maybe we should include your boss. Alex Marshall right? Yeah. Since she's the one to cut your paychecks. Maybe if we get everyone together we can find a solution that suits everyone's needs. Calling Alex isn't really necessary is it? I mean she's my boss you know. She really doesn't have to know anything about this. No I think she should know. If you want a workable solution we need to get inputs from everybody. I'll set up something for tomorrow night you know. One time. I wouldn't even my bar. Okay okay okay. Let's everybody step back for a minute. Bickering's not going to get us anywhere. We've already discussed a few ways to work this out. Let's see if we can make one or two of them actually work. Alex what do you think about these ideas? Well we certainly have some options. One thing I could do is release Steven's check to Gina. What? You can't do that. That's my money. Wait Steven so quick to dismiss this idea. Let's talk about it. It's still your money and your name would still be on the check right Alex? Of course. But by giving it to Gina at least you know the money is still there when you need it. Yeah Dad. Look Gina can open up a new family account with both your names on it and set it up so that both of your signatures are required for withdrawals. You know that's a good idea. My business partner and I have that set up on a corporate account and really having that check and balance system in place is good. Both of us would then know when not to mention where the money is going. Well I think I could live with that arrangement. Dad Well to be honest I hate the idea. I guess as long as my name is on my paycheck and both of our names are on the account. Look Steve this is only a temporary fix. You, me and Gina are going to have to get together to find a way to help you be more responsible with your money. But until we do that this is how it's going to be. Alex will release Steven's paycheck to Gina. Gina will open a new family account with both your names on it and both of your signatures will be required for withdrawals. Does everybody agree? Sounds good. Good. Thanks a lot for coming out this evening Alex. It was my pleasure. Take care Gina and Steven. I'll see you tomorrow. Thanks Alex. Hold up guys. We need to set up some time to talk about budgeting. Alright let's get right to it since we got a lot to talk about and not a whole lot of time to talk about it. Gentlemen based on your experience what factors might have prevented the offenders money management problems from coming to the officer's attention before the conflict arose. Scott let's start with you. Sure. I should say first of all that this case is based upon a case that my partner and I Tim Jenkins handled back in Las Vegas. It mirrors it almost identically. So it's reality. It's reality. And when asked to evaluate it I was struck by two things. One positive and one negative. First of all this guy had a lot of special conditions imposed upon him by the court and we were so narrowly focused on addressing these special conditions that I think we may have lost sight of the bigger picture. We sort of had blinders on whenever we would meet with him out at his house or at his job site addressing these special conditions to neglect of these other equally important financial conditions in his life. That said I think we did one thing right and I'm not just saying that because my supervisor is watching. And that is that we had But it's a good thing you said it. And that is we had developed an extensive collateral network. Unlike when we were talking with the offender when we talked with his friends with his supervisor with his co-workers with his adult children with his wife the conversation was more interactive more two-way and because of that they saw that we were genuinely interested in helping this guy and when this problem arose they fortunately felt comfortable enough to come and talk to us about it. And so I think that collateral network was invaluable. So two lessons learned here. Use those special conditions to the extent possible make them work for you but don't get so overly focused on them that you get tunnel vision. And the second one is use those collateral contacts. Network network network and get to know the offender in the larger context. So important. Yeah. Danny reactions? Well Mark I don't think it's really uncommon for these kinds of problems to not be as readily shown in supervision as other things that are more immediate such as dirty urine screens or new convictions. Those kinds of things are very immediate very urgent and very obvious. Very obvious. And those are the kinds of fires of probation officers with heavy caseloads are very often in the position of rushing around to put out. Also sometimes where you're carrying a heavy caseload just inundated with information about the offenders. For example we know that every month during the first five days of the month each offender is to fill out a monthly report form. Now there is a financial section of course on that report form and ask what was your income? What were your expenses? Did you have any overdue bills? So often you get so much information just a cursory glance and then it's filed. So taking the extra time to really look at that information that we already have in hand sometimes can be our best tip off to something going wrong. So you've hit on a critical point here. Look you guys have heavy caseloads. A lot of the stuff is under the radar screen to begin with so you're not going to pick up on it eventually. And basically what it sounds to me like what you're saying is to the extent possible try to remain conscious here of what could possibly be going on. Try to dig a little deeper especially if you have the time to do it and to the extent possible use your traditional supervision vehicles to do that like the monthly reporting form. That's exactly right. Many times the answers are already there. Okay without further ado let's go out to our Push to Talk site in Nevada probation. Nevada probation are you there? Hi Mark, Tim Jenkins out here in Sin City. Welcome Tim. Fine, fine. Reactions, thoughts, questions, anything come to mind based on either this specific question, the vignette or anything we've said thus far. Mark just to say and clarify that Scott had the narrow focus. I had a real open mind so I would have caught this problem. Just joking Scott. But seriously I just wanted to state if I could the importance of a collateral network and how that can really benefit in the supervision of a defender. Instead of just one or in Scott and I's case two officers supervising an individual by contacting neighbors, friends, family you're recruiting others who have an interest in seeing this offender complete supervision satisfactorily. So I can't stress that enough how important it is to set up this collateral network and to take the time to do that. So just to sort of put a fine point on it here you're using the collateral network to help supervise basically. Exactly. Scott, any reactions to that? Is that ring true to you? That your partners put the blame entirely on your shoulders? We try to develop as extensive a network as we can. These people have known the offenders a lot longer than we have. They're with them daily. They know their moods and they're going to be the first ones to know when things are going wrong. And so I can't overestimate or over emphasize how important that is. Danny? I think that it is extremely important. It would be very easy in this situation to just tell the offender, this is what you have to do and give him a list. But in the end the effectiveness, I just don't think the effectiveness would be there the way it was in this particular case that they use those resources very effectively I think. Thanks very much Tim for that comment and those points. My understanding is that we've got a fax in from the field. Let's go to Mark Maggio for that. Mark? Okay Mark, two questions that get to the issues that both Scott and Danny just touched on. How can we reconcile or balance the need that Danny mentions for effectiveness and the equally pressing need for efficiency? And Scott, sort of tagging on to that, could you or did you were you able to empower the offender so that you were able to back off and let him take over the budgeting role? Good question and provides an interesting segue to the next question that's listed in the participant guide which has to do with the positives and negatives or the appealing and unappealing aspects of the approach. Scott, you want to start us off? Exactly. And that's what I really like about this approach is that it's not simply a quick fix solution. We are teaching this offender how to work through and solve problems in the future. It's all too easy as probation officers when we get a problem from an offender to sort of take it out of their hands and deal with it on our own. That'd be the easy thing to do if we're really the only ones who are benefiting at that point. But in this case, this guy has a definite term of supervision and in the future he's going to continue to experience these problems. We've taught him how to work through a problem. Hopefully in the future when he experiences a problem he will at least have one point of reference. He'll have one positive learning experience, one positive problem solving experience. He will hopefully remember that he has numerous options when faced with a problem, that he can rely upon his family and friends. So these sorts of things are very important and probably the most beneficial aspect of this approach. So you're really educating this offender. For me that's a court educator's perspective. That's a particularly interesting perspective. You're not just getting the fish for him. You're teaching him how to fish. Exactly. It would be a lot easier to simply handle the problem for him, but not as beneficial. Any reactions? I think it is a very brave approach. Anytime you want to bring in family members or want to bring in other collateral contacts such as the employer, it takes more time and it takes more effort. But in the end, hopefully it will be more effective. Of course we always have to make those judgment calls about effectiveness versus efficiency. If you have 65 people that have some sort of problem every day, you have to make some judgments. Where is the best use of my time and my resources? And I just don't think there's a form or a particular model that can really tell us that. It just comes with time and you have to use some intuition to choose the battles where you can be the most effective. Interesting. Because you sort of touched on one of the more unappealing aspects potentially, which is the sort of this from-ended inefficiency. So maybe we can get a little crossfire going here. Scott, what's your reaction to Danny's comments in terms of picking and choosing? Obviously you need to pick and choose and see where you can do the most good. But that's what we do every day and that's what we're paid to do. Make professional decisions. We prioritize every day when we're in our office and when we're out in the field. We do so on these sorts of cases by sense of urgency. This guy's life was falling down around him and so it was very urgent. Also it was important that this offender was receptive to our idea and so we knew that it wouldn't be forcing it down its throat and he would be cooperative. So again, that's the sort of thing that you do. You prioritize and you make those decisions. But that's what we do. We're paid very well to do and that's what we should do. Let's go out to Mississippi Northern because I know that you guys have had a chance to discuss this in your district. We've talked about it over the phone. Danny McKittrick and I have. What do you all think about this approach? What are some of the positives, some of the negatives, some of the appealing, some of the unappealing aspects? Hi, this is Laura Wright speaking for Mississippi Northern. We felt that the probation officer's approach was effective. We felt he obtained pertinent information from the daughter by asking probing questions. We also felt he was able to get all of the parties involved together for a meeting and he did so quickly. And we felt he was able to do so quickly because he had a good report with the family, the employer and the offender. Interesting. The actions? Again, the extensive federal network is so important. Great. Thanks. My understanding is that we've got a call from Becky in D.C. in the probation office. Becky, are you here? Yes, I am. Hi, Becky. What's your question or reaction? Actually, I wanted to find out if, I'm sorry, the officer's name escapes me now, but if Scott, if he and his partner addressed where the offender's money was going, whether it was drugs or alcohol or if the issue was there since apparently he didn't have anything to show for the money. Yeah. And perhaps not surprisingly, he was gambling his money away. And again, I back up and I say we were going in with blinders on and for all I know there may have been betting slips on the table as I'm talking to him about his community service. So that's what forces to me that every time I go into a situation now, and of course this was the very first case I ever had, let me say, whenever I go into a situation now I step back and I try and take a look at the bigger picture and the offender's life situation as a whole. I don't always necessarily focus on those very narrow court ordered conditions. Interesting. Any reactions to that? Well, everyone's life is a tapestry. The probation officers as well as the offenders. So we find over time that one thing is connected to the next thing to the next thing. And the betting slip on the table, put it down the road is connected to the paycheck is connected to the employer. So you have to take a holistic approach. Great. I want to get to the last question because it has to do with next steps. Scott, Danny, how do you handle the next steps? We saw in the vignette, for example, that at the end the officer was saying, hold on a second, let's talk about budgeting. He was looking at the future. What would your next steps be? What are they in that case? Yeah, I think it would be very easy in this situation for the probation officer to say, okay, problem solved and move on. However, I think that the probation officer should view this as simply a stop-gap measure, which will now allow him to address the underlying problem, the bigger underlying problem in a more methodical fashion. In our case, we assessed where the offender was financially. He was at a very low level and we, throughout the term of supervision continued to reassess. So on successive visits to the home or in the office, we addressed very basic financial and budgeting issues. On our first occasion, we saw the need to address the differences between needs and wants. While this guy knew that he had to have groceries and that's a need, he also believed that premium movie channels were a necessity and not simply a want. He'd always had them and everyone he knew had them, so he thought it was a need. So we got him to see the differences between needs and wants. On another visit, we sat down and we put pen to paper and we developed a budget for him. Actually seeing his cash flow, what was coming into the house and what was going out had a really big impact on him, seeing the limits of his cash flow. On yet another visit, we discussed the problem with high interest rates on his credit cards. He would whip out his credit card on every purchase and didn't realize the impact that 21% interest on a pizza had to be on the bottom line. So very small baby steps for this guy and continued reassessment throughout the term of supervision. Danny, we're running out of time, so I want to go very, very quickly to New York Western. New York Western, do you have anything for us in terms of reactions to what the next steps might be? Yes, Mark. This is A. Murray Serati. What I thought I would do since we already discussed that we don't want to reinvent the wheel, I would actually send this individual possibly to a money management program which may include consumer credit counseling. Since it's our job to help the defendant, we also need to know what community resources are available to us. And this might be a good situation where we could resort to defendants somewhere else. I'm glad you made that point. We've talked about making references or referrals to community credit counseling agencies and I think your last point sort of harkens back to earlier in the program where we were talking about the importance of having community resources at hand, like community credit counseling who can help an offender like this with specific life skills deficits. So thank you guys for adding that. I'm wondering if we're sort of coming to the close of the program so now's a good time to ask if anybody has any final comments from any of the push to talk sites on anything we've heard here today. Alright, we're going to wrap it up then. We're just about out of time though I'm sure we could continue this conversation for hours. Clearly this is a population of defendants and offenders that continues to grow in the federal system and by developing and sharing strategies for investigation and supervision officers will be able to manage that population more effectively more efficiently and maybe even with fewer headaches. The result can be an overall balanced case load that protects the community and helps them become a more productive member in it. I'd really like to thank the panelists including our push to talk sites. Your participation really brought home some points to consider. This thing would not have been as lively without you. Thanks to all of the participants if we didn't have a chance to get to your question or facts or sincerest apologies we'll try to incorporate them into our online discussion in April and May and for more about that you can contact me at the center email. My email address is msherman at fjc.gov After we take a look at a brief summary Mark Magill will be back with some final words. As Mark said that's all the time we have for today. To those who still have questions to be answered and comments to be made to remember you can continue this discussion in the online conference coming up in April. District representatives should contact Mark Sherman for more details. Keep an eye on the FJTN bulletin for our next special needs offenders program which will focus on computer crime. Remember to fax in your participant rosters and evaluations because we need your feedback as we plan additional FJTN programs. And with that thanks for participating and please enjoy the rest of your day.