A Cross Between Social Worker and Cop : Being a Parole Officer Can Be a Double Life

Ralph Pinckney jumped out of the 1977 Mercury Cougar for a word on the street with a man he knows. He told the man he would probably drop by his house later. It was not a social conversation.

Pinckney is a New York state parole officer. The man he talked to is a parolee, out of jail after serving eight years for manslaughter and armed robbery.

Pinckney and Pam Dickerson were in the field on that cold winter’s day, making house calls in the Bedford-Stuyvesant-Crown Heights sections of Brooklyn. It’s the 77th precinct, a high-crime rather than high-rent district, and both were armed with standard issue .38-caliber revolvers they keep holstered at their waist.

“It’s good when it’s cold,” Dickerson said. “They’re more likely to be home.”

Pinckney and Dickerson are two of about 8,500 parole officers in the United States supervising 250,000 parolees. It’s a job that varies from state to state. Some, like Pinckney and Dickerson, are peace officers and armed. Others are not. Some do both probation and parole. In other states, including New York, the departments are separate.

Link With Square World

The job can be schizophrenic--part cop, part social worker, some big brother, some embodiment of “the man.” The parole officer, or p.o. as he is known, is sometimes the only person the parolee knows from the square world of jobs, someone who shows up at 9 and copes with the system.

“Of course parole officers are schizophrenic,” said one wag. “What the system does is take a social worker and give him a gun and a bulletproof vest.”

It is still a male-dominated field, although more women are coming in. As recently as five years ago, female parole officers were mainly hired when there was an adequate number of women parolees. Today, it’s different. All of Dickerson’s parolees are male. Only 4% of New York state’s parolees are women.

Parole officers are generally paid more than probation officers and field workers in social service agencies, which attracts many parole officers from those fields.

Parole officers in New York state must have a bachelor’s degree and three years’ experience in the field, or a master’s degree and two years of related field experience to qualify for the $25,000 starting salary. New York, with 22,000 parolees under supervision, has the third-largest parolee population in the country. Only Texas and California have more.

Says Job Misunderstood

Leonard Marks, a senior parole officer now in a supervisory capacity, says the job is frequently misunderstood.

“A lot of people confuse us with the parole board, others think we are cops and some think of us as social workers,” said Marks, an 11-year veteran of the New York parole system.

He has seen the system change.

“People used to take a more cavalier attitude toward the job. They mostly came from law enforcement backgrounds, but now we’re bringing in more from the social services and they’re trying to help people more,” he said.

There is always the duality of the job. The parole officer is charged with helping the parolee adjust to society, but if he sees the parolee becoming a threat, it’s his job to take him off the street.

Pinckney and Dickerson were working together that day, but often they go alone, a risky business. Pinckney’s usual partner, also a woman, was jumped a few weeks ago in a housing project elevator. She was not hurt, but the thugs took her gun.

Last Columbus Day weekend, a parole officer was murdered in a parked car while he was meeting with an informant.

Threats Are Common

“The case is still under investigation, but it looks like he was set up,” said Al Rosario, a senior parole officer. “It looks like a guy he sent back took out a contract, but we don’t know yet.”

Threats against parole officers when they “violate” a parolee--that is, send him back to jail for violating the conditions of parole--have always been common, and generally brushed aside.

“Now, they are all being reported,” said Rosario. “I don’t know what good it will do, but we’re reporting them.”

When Parole Officer Brian Rooney was killed last fall, it was the first such fatality since 1976. In the 1976 case, a parole officer was shot as he tried to arrest a parole violator. The killer was himself subsequently slain in a shoot-out with New York City police.

“The parole officer does not have the anonymity of a New York policeman,” Marks said. “You’re out there and they know who you are.” When a parolee is sent back to prison, he usually blames his parole officer.

“I tell them that if they have to go back to jail, they will send themselves,” Marks said. “Still, it’s not easy. A young boy who has been raped on Riker’s Island does not want to go back.”

Relationships Are Tense

Pinckney has an unlisted phone number and doesn’t let his parolees know where he lives. No matter how good the relationship with the parolee, it’s always tense.

“The bottom line is always the same. You are taking away a man’s freedom,” Pinckney said.

The job allows a lot of latitude--setting your own hours, creating your own priorities. But it’s a high-burnout job. Marks said that of the 24 parole officers assigned to headquarters in the Times Square area of Manhattan, 18 or 19 have less than two years’ experience. Part of that, he said, is due to expansion.

“It’s a good place to study burnout,” Rosario agreed. “It’s a high-stress job, no matter how you look at it. You hear on the news at night, ‘Parolee arrested in Brooklyn,’ and the first thing that goes through your head is, ‘I hope he’s not mine.’ Somewhere out there, there’s always the case that’s ready to bite you.”

“I’ve been lucky. I haven’t been bitten, but I’ve been fooled,” said Rosario, a 49-year-old native New Yorker. He recalls how he once met with a parolee in his office and had a very nice chat.

“He asked after my family and I asked after his and he said everything was fine. Later that day, two detectives came around looking for him. He had shot somebody four times with a double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun. He was sure that he had killed the man and nobody knew. But the man lived to identify him,” Rosario said.

Need to Know Details

Rosario was able to tell the police the three most likely places the parolee would be. They staked out all three and arrested him.

“The good parole officer knows the man’s family, his girlfriend, his friends, where he hangs out, where his mother lives,” Pinckney said.

Pinckney and Dickerson blend into the scenery as they make their rounds. She wore blue jeans and a poplin jacket; he wore a brown cap, a gold hoop earring in his left ear and a poplin jacket.

Marks, however, always wore a suit on the street. He feels it is a sign of respect. But clothing is an individual choice.

Although the job can be risky--Marks had to pull his gun several times--parole officers say they prefer to rely on their brains rather than their weapons.

Pinckney and Dickerson observe minute precautionary measures, measures an observer would never notice, as they make their rounds through projects, apartments and private homes.

When they knock on a door, they always stand off to the side. There’s always the chance that bullets might answer a knock. They open their jackets on cold days and take off their gloves before entering someone’s home.

Avoiding Crowded Elevators

You can’t get to your gun with a zippered jacket, nor can you shoot easily with gloves on, explained Rosario, their boss and also a range instructor.

If an elevator comes and three guys are on it, you say you are waiting for someone, officers said. If you need to go up a stairwell, wait until you’re traveling with a partner; don’t go alone.

Pinckney is also alert to a variety of lesser things. If the parolee suddenly becomes much better dressed and says he is not working yet, it’s time to start watching him more carefully.

On the other hand, if he is getting dirtier and dirtier on each visit, it might be time to ask him to roll up his sleeves to look at his arm. Sixty percent of New York parolees take drugs and 50% have an alcohol problem.

“If he suddenly turns extremely nice, my antennae go up too,” Pinckney said. “Something’s going on.”

Girlfriends, wives and mothers are often a parole officer’s best sources. They want their man to go straight and will call the parole officer if he is getting back into drugs and alcohol--or even if he is just missing.

A Visit on a Cold Day

One parolee Pinckney visits this cold day has an alcohol problem and his mother has called in the past. Pinckney comes into the house and there are a few empty beer bottles around. Pinckney asks him how he’s doing with the booze.

“I’m holding it down to a few beers,” the offender says.

“I have no problem with that,” Pinckney says. “Are you working yet?” The man says he has had a few odd jobs, but he is trying for something permanent.

Rosario points out that many parolees have no idea how to get a job. They have hustled or dealt drugs all their lives.

“They don’t know what a job application is. And they have no one to ask. Who are they going to ask, the guys they hung out with on the street? They don’t know either.”

So the parole officer can become a job counselor as well, or refer the parolee to an agency that can help.