Parole Agents Face Hard Times : Penology: Caseloads will grow after 231 officers lose their jobs by year’s end because of budget cuts.

Frances Valenzuela thinks of herself as a social worker, but when she visits her clients she carries a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson snub-nosed revolver.

Valenzuela’s clients are convicted felons. She is a state parole agent charged with supervising ex-convicts and helping them adjust to the world outside prison.

“I see myself as a social worker who can back up what she says,” said the 37-year-old agent, who works out of the Crenshaw office in Southwest Los Angeles.

But Valenzuela and fellow officers contend that they are less and less able to back up what they say and warn that huge caseloads, bulging prisons, lack of alternative methods of punishment, scarce treatment programs and state budget cuts could threaten public safety.

State corrections officials say that 231 of 1,428 agents will lose their jobs by year’s end because of a $32-million budget cut in the parole division. Those who are left must pick up caseloads that now range from 60 to 70 parolees each and could go as high as 80 to 90, according to parole administrators.

Predictably, penology experts disagree on what to expect as a result.

Reformers say parole officers might be forced to concentrate on providing services to those felons most in need of help. Lobbyists for corrections personnel say the public is at risk and programs for “coddled” ex-convicts should be cut instead of agents’ jobs. Top corrections administrators say the parole division remains the best in the country.

But, though they may agree on little else, experts concur that California’s parole agents have a formidable task.

Take Valenzuela’s caseload as an example.

She is looking for Albert. If she finds him, she will lock him up.

But with more than 60 other clients to worry about, Valenzuela does not have much time to search for Albert. He is not, after all, a special case. In fact, Albert (not his real name) is distressingly typical.

At age 21, Albert was given the standard $200 and released from state prison in July, 1990. He was one of 65,420 parolees in California that year. The number has risen to 85,000.

Like 32% of state parolees, Albert is from Los Angeles County and was sent back to the county after serving a year and several months of a three-year term for selling cocaine. Again, his offense was fairly typical. Nearly 33% of parolees were drug offenders in 1990. Another 33% had committed property crimes, 27% crimes of violence, with the remaining 7% categorized as perpetrators of “other” offenses.

All state prisoners, except lifers, are automatically put on parole for a period of three years upon completion of their sentences. Parolees may be released from supervision after a year of satisfactory adjustment or kept on parole for a maximum of four years for unsatisfactory behavior. Parolees may be administratively returned to prison by hearing officers for up to a year for getting into trouble.

Albert was assigned to Valenzuela’s caseload and he fit right in.

As in the state as a whole, a large percentage of Valenzuela’s clients are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Albert is a cocaine addict.

Most of Valenzuela’s clients are unemployed, unskilled and possess a sixth- to eighth-grade education. Albert has no job or skills. He claims to have finished the 11th grade, but tests put his educational level at just below the sixth grade.

Albert adjusted fairly well to freedom at first. He got an unskilled factory job with the help of his family and lived with a girlfriend.

But Albert soon lost the job and Valenzuela learned that he was using drugs and hanging out with his old friends.

“I tried to work with him,” she said. “A lot of what I do is try and get these people to believe in themselves. . . . We’re battling against tremendously low self-esteem. . . . One of my main challenges is to convince someone that they can be something and have something in their life.”

Valenzuela tries to spend one to three hours per month in the field with a parolee like Albert. Agents fear that such clients will get less attention because of budget cuts.

Programs for rehabilitating parolees are limited and Valenzuela often must concentrate on matters as basic as housing because many clients emerge from prison homeless.

“I would say one out of three or four in this area don’t have any place to stay,” Valenzuela said.

The Corrections Department contracts for some private housing, but other services such as job training, employment and drug treatment are scarce.

There is a program called Jobs Plus to help parolees get work. But few of Valenzuela’s parolees have job skills or the motivation to make the trip to the program’s office in Santa Monica.

“I couldn’t get anyone to go over there,” Valenzuela said. “Only one guy showed up in Santa Monica.”

The state Employment Development Department also provides job referral services for parolees, but has had limited success.

“Many of them are not job-ready,” Valenzuela said. “Employment is not a replacement for drug use. They will blow the job and the (employer) contact.”

After he lost his job, Albert began to drift.

“He would say he was looking for a job,” Valenzuela said. “(Then) he would admit he was lazy, running around with friends. He had no idea what he was doing. He was just out there.”

He was also coming up dirty on drug use tests that are routinely demanded of parolees. A $900,000 cut in funds for these tests is drastically reducing their use, but the effect of the cutback is open to debate. Some agents believe that parolees will use drugs with impunity, but testing positive did not have any immediate consequences for Albert.

Department of Corrections officials deny that overcrowded prisons have resulted in a policy that prohibits locking up parolees who fail drug tests.

But agents say they are discouraged by supervisors from seeking to revoke paroles of clients for offenses such as drug use, even though the agents believe that the habit is being supported by crime.

“It’s something that’s troubled me since I started this job,” said Valenzuela. “If the rule by the people in power is that we don’t want to take people back because our prisons are full, then the parole agent is put in a bind, because you’re trying to do your job, but the message is let ‘em ride, let ‘em ride.”

Agents complain that there is nothing short of prison with which to discipline parolees who commit transgressions. For drug users the only mandatory program available, agents say, is a 30-day compulsory dry-out program.

Despite the apparent reluctance to send parolees back to prison for such offenses as drug use, California revokes more paroles than any state, according to Department of Corrections officials.

Within two years of leaving prison, nearly 40% of parolees are sent back for a parole violation and another 26% are returned for a new criminal conviction, according to a Corrections Department study.

Albert’s turn came in the summer of 1991 when he was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend. He plea-bargained the incident into a misdemeanor and got a 45-day jail sentence, but parole authorities stepped in and sent him back to prison for 5 1/2 months.

Albert got out in January.

“Then we started all over again,” Valenzuela said.

Once again, “he did pretty well in the beginning,” she said. “Eyes clear, head clear, hope for the future.”

Valenzuela referred Albert to the state employment development officer but he failed to get a job and, within a few months, dropped out of sight.

“By April,” Valenzuela said, “I couldn’t find him, which meant he (was) back to what he was doing.”

Last May, she found Albert at his girlfriend’s house. He tested dirty, as expected, and Valenzuela was able to talk him into trying a private substance abuse residence program.

Such programs are scarce and frequently there are no openings.

“I don’t think there could ever be enough of them,” Valenzuela said. “There are waiting lists, which is a barrier to being effective. (Parolees) finally agree to enter and if there’s no bed for two months, you’ve lost them.”

Albert entered the Royal Palms Recovery Home in downtown Los Angeles. He lasted only a month, but Valenzuela was delighted.

“For him to be there 30 days was absolutely wonderful,” she said. “We look at small victories because if you look for the big win, it may never happen.”

Friends helped Albert get a construction job, but it did not last. Still, he tested clean in July and August as Valenzuela continued to counsel him.

But September’s test was dirty and Albert failed to keep appointments at home and at the parole office. Then, last week, after being locked out of his girlfriend’s home, Albert broke in and stole the woman’s VCR.

He is using and missing.

Despite everything, Valenzuela does not believe that the effort spent on Albert has been a waste.

“I would hope that supervision has provided him with alternatives, a different way of looking at things,” she said. “There may be somebody out there who was saved from being bopped over the head and having their purse taken, I don’t know.”

So Valenzuela is looking for Albert. But she has only until the end of December to find him because she is among the 231 agents losing their jobs.