tough-love approach to repeat offenders

[YurtGirl]

I wonder if that study is at all accurate. Having worked and studied with the probation department here as well as in Arizona during college, I found without a doubt that probation is a raging joke on this island. There is no supervision given to people on probation, I have seen countless cases of it, whether intense probation or basic. In Arizona, those P.O.s knew what time their charges got up to use the restroom every night. It was no joke. They did house checks at random looking for drugs, alcohol and firearms. If those on probation were caught with any, and I mean anywhere in the house they lived in at all, they were held responsible and arrested, probation revoked. Here, they don't even look, they don't do house visits etc, so I'm not surprised to hear that the charges are 'less likely to use drugs' (there is less testing and more room for them to 'clean out'), 'less likely to skip appointments' (there are far less appointments!), and hence sentenced to less incarceration. Lack of enforcement here is a vicious cycle that all parts are tied to, we see it mostly from the police but that's because the prosecutors don't enforce, and if they do, the probation officers don't enforce and if they do, the judges don't enforce when they screw up...

Melissa Fletcher
___________________________
"Make yurts, not war" Bill Coperthwaite, 1973