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Contents

• Some results of community supervision
• Suggestions
• Problems
• How to notify us of violations
• Confidentiality
• Reinventing Probation
• Conditions of community supervision
• How to make payments
• Need More Monthly Report Forms?

Some results of community supervision

Approximately 75 percent of our offenders successfully complete supervision each year. Last year, in our in-house services, 359 offenders received benefit of a substance abuse evaluation. Another 105 psychological screenings were conducted, and 68 anger management evaluations were conducted. Numerous other individuals received benefit of counseling services through outside contractors.

In Fiscal Year 2007, we collected $437,158 in restitution that went to the victims of crime. A total of $379,807 in fines and $45,545 in attorney's fees was collected and remitted for the benefit of Brazos County. An additional $90,133 in court costs was collected, some of which benefits the County, with the remainder going to the State. Finally, $26,944 was collected and remitted for the benefit of our local Crime Stoppers program.

Can we do a better job? You bet. We continually strive to improve our services, and welcome constructive suggestions from the community, as well as VOLUNTEERS! (Click to link to volunteer section.) To volunteer, call the department at (979) 361-4410. We are happy to add helping hands to our array of services.

Suggestions

We welcome constructive comments on our operations, and ask that those be made in writing to

BCCSCD, P.O. Box 2015, Bryan, Texas 77806-2015.

Problems

Probationers who are experiencing problems and who need assistance are encouraged to call their community supervision officer at (979) 361-4410. If an officer is unable to resolve a problem, the supervisor may be contacted, but the supervisor will review the case and discuss it with the officer first to see if there has been an attempt to resolve the problem before he or she gets involved. If a problem is still not resolved through attempts with the officer and supervisor, the Deputy Director can be contacted. As with the supervisor, the case will be reviewed to determine if efforts have been made to resolve the problem before involvement by the Deputy Director. As a final resort, the Director may be contacted if all efforts at resolution with the officer, supervisor, and Deputy Director fail.

How to notify us of violations

We encourage citizens to report violations of the conditions by probationers. Although probationers' due process rights are somewhat limited, violations that are reported to the courts must have a basis in fact. Reports of law violations should be made with the appropriate law enforcement agency, whose personnel will investigate the complaint. For example, allegations of domestic violence, theft, driving while intoxicated, burglary, drug possession or sales, and any other law violation would be investigated by the appropriate law enforcement agency, such as the Brazos County Sheriff's Department [(979) 361-4100], the Bryan Police Department [(979) 361-3888], or the College Station Police Department [(979) 764-3600]. For any emergency, dial 9-1-1.

The results of police investigations of probationers are passed on to the community supervision officer. If the police agency determines the case should be pursued, the judge who placed the offender on community supervision will be notified. Community supervision officers do not have the power to arrest probationers except in the very limited circumstance of a direct order from a judge, and the appropriate paperwork must first be filed with that judge. Violations must be reported to the judge in the appropriate format, the prosecutor must have a chance to review the violations and recommend to the judge that action be taken, and the judge then determines whether to take action on the violations. If action is taken, a summons is issued for the probationer to appear in court to answer to the violations, or a warrant is issued for the same purpose, after which a police officer will arrest the offender. See the Definitions section for a discussion of revocation.

Violations that do not involve breaking the law are investigated by the community supervision officer, and if it is determined that a violation likely occurred, the officer will present the information to the prosecutor and judge, as discussed above. An example is allegations of drug use. The officer will look for corroborating evidence, such as an arrest for drug possession, a positive urine screen, or an admission by the offender of drug use before the violation is reported to the court. Another example is an allegation of a probationer falsifying community service hours. The officer investigates the complaint with the community service agency, and reports the results of the investigation to the prosecutor and judge. A third example is an offender who is reportedly missing class after being ordered by a judge to attend school. The officer contacts school authorities to verify class attendance, and if the allegation is true, that information is brought to the prosecutor and judge's attention. The community supervision officer recommends action that may be taken by the judge, but the final decision on that action rests with the judge who originally sentenced the offender.

Confidentiality

Information contained in case files of offenders is considered confidential and not open to public view. Because judges have the ultimate direction and control over the supervision and rehabilitation of offenders, the CSCD maintains those records solely on behalf of the court. Records of persons on community supervision are therefore records of the judiciary and are not subject to the Open Records/Public Information Act. The fact that a person is under supervision and for what offense may be released by the CSCD.

Material that is considered public record generally includes information on the judgment, conditions of supervision, and other documents filed in the District Clerk's Office.

Valid and legal claim to information may exist when the request originates from a law enforcement agency, a prosecutor (including those from other counties), the Attorney General's Office, an agency of the federal government, a judge with a valid interest in the defendant, or another CSCD conducting supervision or a pre-sentence investigation. These requests for information may be honored without having the probationer sign a release form.

A probationer and/or defense attorney may only view a pre-sentence report from the file at the time of sentencing; no other file material will be shown unless so ordered by the court. Victims have special rights not accorded other individuals, and may have access to additional information. For further information on the Victim Services Program, visit the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website.

Some information about an offender may be obtained with a release of information form. The form must specifically state what information is being requested, who the information will be released to, and the form must be signed and dated by the offender. This type of release is generally used when an offender wants information about his or her supervision shared with a family member or significant other, or outside agency. A family member or other interested person may not have access to information in the probationer's file without written consent of the offender, and even with a signed consent form, because the files are judicial records, only limited information will be released.

The supervision officer may also have the offender sign a release form so that the officer can obtain information from an outside agency in order to better supervise the offender. This information may include medical records, records from treatment for mental or emotional disorders, substance abuse treatment information, and information pertaining to employment or education.

Reinventing Probation

The information for this section was taken from an article in the Summer 1999 issue of the National Association of Probation Executives Executive Exchange. CMIT is the Secretariat for the National Association of Probation Executives.

The department is involved with a national movement known as reinventing probation, which began in 1997. John J. DiIulio, Jr., formerly of Princeton University and now with the University of Pennsylvania, and who is affiliated with the Manhattan Institute in New York and Public/Private Ventures in Philadelphia, spearheaded this initiative with Ronald J. Corbett, Jr., Deputy Commissioner of Probation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and a member of the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. The initiative began with dialogue between these two, and a subsequent meeting at the Manhattan Institute, under the auspices of the Center for Civic Innovation, in New York. The initial meeting, attended by probation professionals from across the country, was to discuss best practices in the field of probation and to brainstorm about improving probation services. This meeting produced ideas on problems with probation and strategies on how community corrections could be improved.

Problems. The national group determined that some of the problems facing the field of probation today are:

• The profession has become too focused on spending time in offices rather than supervising offenders where they live, work, and recreate;
• As evidenced by crime polls, there is a lack of public confidence in probation as a correctional sanction;
• Probation is not visible in the community;
• Conditions of probation are not rigorously enforced;
• There is not enough emphasis on probation's role in public safety;
• Probation needs to do a better job of developing real interagency cooperation and partnerships;
• Paperwork is too big a part of the job;
• Too much time is spent on crisis management and not enough on long-term planning; and
• Probation does not have a successful marketing strategy because the product is not exciting to the public.

Process. The national group adopted the following process:

• Identifying "best practices" in the field;
• Clarifying what probation really is and what it ought to be;
• Learning from community policing;
• Determining how to bring about change;
• Developing a strategic plan to advance a reinvented probation; and,
• Generating support from a wide array of individuals, organizations, and groups.

As part of the process, the Texas Reinventing Probation Strategy Group was put together by Dan Richard Beto, Director of the Correctional Management Institute of Texas to advance a new product. The Texas group included representatives from the Correctional Management Institute, the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, the Community Justice Assistance Division, and the directors of juvenile or adult probation departments from Brazos, Bell, Harris, Dallas, Jefferson, Montgomery, Tarrant, and Williamson Counties. Product. The product envisioned by the national group is as follows:

• A system driven by clear cut values;
• An emphasis on public safety first;
• Probation supervision delivered in the neighborhoods and community rather than in the office;
• Meaningful supervision, a strong enforcement of the conditions, and a rapid response to violations;
• Partnerships developed with the police, courts, treatment providers, and other social service agencies;
• An embrace of faith based initiatives;
• A rational allocation of resources, focusing on problem areas; and,
• Fully embracing a "war room" mentality when dealing with the criminal element, employing available technologies.

The Texas group specified the following product:

• An emphasis on public safety;
• Offender assessment, leading to a rational allocation of resources;
• Meaningful supervision and a more rigorous enforcement of the conditions of supervision;
• Accountability for the offender and the department;
• A rational approach to data collection; and,
• Avoidance of doing things just because that is the way they have always been done.

The national and Texas groups agreed that the blueprint for revitalizing probation found in the 1999 Center for Civic Innovation's report entitled A "Broken Windows" Probation: The Next Step in Fighting Crime was a strategy worth implementing. The "broken windows" theory postulates that major disorganization and crime do not just spring up in neighborhoods; rather, it begins with things as simple as windows being broken out and not fixed. When the criminal elements sees that no one in the area is interested in fixing the small problems, more serious crimes are progressively committed in the area. If small problems are addressed when they occur, the escalation to more serious offenses does not occur. This theory can be applied to community supervision, in that if offenders are allowed to commit minor violations of their supervision unchecked, they will progress to more serious violations. (Click to link to the Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute's Web site )

Several Texas CSCD's have begun implementing strategies associated with the reinventing literature. The Brazos County CSCD is committed to the "reinventing" concept, and as a result, has implemented a number of staff-driven changes in how offenders are supervised. As of June 2000, the department is focusing efforts on supervision in the field, especially among the highest risk and need offenders. An intake and assessment team will conduct the assessment process to better identify problem areas and needed referral sources for offenders to address their needs more quickly to better protect the community from acts committed by these offenders. Officers have been appointed to write memorandums to the courts, advising the prosecutors and judges of violations, and requesting that swift action be taken in response to those violations. The Bryan Police Department and the CSCD are now partnered in conducting field visits for the highest risk offenders, and have found the partnership mutually beneficial in protecting the community. Additional police departments will be added to this initiative at a later date.

We are working with Texas A&M University to evaluate programs to fully utilize resources, and continue to be involved with the Community Partnership Board, which grew out of a group of concerned and committed people who came together to examine the barriers faced by families seeking assistance to improve the quality of life for their children. From the initial group arose Project Unity, which developed a holistic process that eliminated duplication of services for families, mountains of paperwork, and a lack of communication. Their mission is to increase the abilities of families to successfully nurture their children by helping them to access resources across education and health and human service agencies. The top priority is to focus on the needs of the families, not the needs of the agencies. Working with the Community Partnership Board and Project Unity has allowed the CSCD staff to meet staff members of other agencies who provide services to many of our offenders, and to learn how those services work. The reinventing probation effort will continue to provide these types of opportunities for our staff members, will enable us to provide better services to offenders, and to better protect the community.

We are committed to offering opportunities for offenders to improve their lives by learning non-criminal behaviors and asking the courts to sanction or remove from the community those who choose not to do so, thereby assisting in making our community safer. The reinventing effort will improve our success in this effort.

Conditions of community supervision

The judge may impose any reasonable condition that is designed to protect or restore the community, protect or restore the victim, or punish, rehabilitate, or reform the defendant. At any time during the period of supervision, the judge may alter or modify the conditions of supervision.
Although many offenders are given special conditions of community supervision based upon their needs or their risks to the community, the following are standard conditions of community supervision as provided by Article 42.12 of the Code of Criminal Procedure:
Commit no offense against the laws of this State or of any other State or of the United States;
Avoid injurious or vicious habits;
Avoid persons or places of disreputable or harmful character;
Report to the supervision officer as directed by the judge or supervision officer and obey all rules and regulations of the community supervision and corrections department;
Permit the supervision officer to visit at home or elsewhere;
Work faithfully at suitable employment;
Remain within a specified place;
Pay a fine, if one be assessed, and all court costs whether a fine be assessed or not, in one or several sums;
Pay supervision fees of $50.00 per month;
Reimburse the County for attorney's fees;
Pay restitution to the victim;
Support any dependents;
Perform community service; and,
Submit to testing for alcohol or controlled substances.

Based upon the nature of the offense or the needs of the offender, the judge may find it appropriate to add additional conditions of community supervision. Examples are:

Abstain from the use or possession of alcohol;
Complete an alcohol education program for first or repeat DWI offenders;
Have an ignition interlock system installed and maintained;
Complete a drug offender education course;
Submit to a psychiatric, psychological, or substance abuse evaluation and any treatment recommended;
Serve jail or State jail time;
Obtain a GED certificate, or participate in educational, parenting, vocational, or similar classes;
Obtain a valid Texas driver's license and liability insurance;
Apply for child support enforcement services and / or legitimize children;
Write a letter of apology to the victim;
Do not be a signatory to a checking account;
Submit to a curfew;
Because of substance abuse issues, behavior in conflict with the conditions of supervision, sex offender issues, prior commitments to prison or jail, chronic unemployment, limited mental capacity, seriousness of the offense, or similar issues, the probationer may be placed into the Intensive Probation Program, and onto an Intensive Supervision Caseload, Substance Abuse Caseload, Sex Offender Caseload, or Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facility Caseload;
Be placed in a Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facility, Court Residential Treatment Center, Restitution Center, or Substance Abuse Treatment Facility;
Attend a Victim Impact Panel;
Pay a $5.00 fee for the State-wide sexual assault program;
Register as a sex offender;
Attend counseling sessions for sex offenders;
Pay the costs for one year of psychological counseling for victim(s) of sexual offenses;
Pay for sex offender newspaper publication;
Not contact the victim nor any of the victim's family members;
Not go upon, work, or volunteer with, agencies or organizations that have as their function the provision of services to children 17 years of age or younger;
Submit a blood sample for typing;
Submit to polygraph testing;
Submit to electronic monitoring;
Not possess any computer or other material of a sexual nature and allow the supervision officer to inspect material in the home for compliance;
Provide public notice of the offense in any manner ordered; and,
Make a payment to Crime Stoppers, family violence shelters, Crime Victims' Compensation Fund, and/or children's advocacy centers.

How to make payments

Payments are to be made per the court order. Delinquencies are addressed through administrative or court hearings, and failure to pay court ordered obligations can result in the revocation of community supervision.

Payments can be made in person at 202 East 27th Street, Suite 200, Bryan, Texas 77803, or by mail at BCCSCD, P.O. Box 2015, Bryan, Texas 77806-2015.

No personal checks are accepted, and will be returned if an attempt is made to pay by personal check. Cash, cashier's checks, and money orders are accepted when payments are made in person. Payments made through the mail should only contain cashier's checks or money orders, as it is not a good idea to send cash through the mail.

Always print your name and address clearly on the envelope and any cashier's checks or money orders sent through the mail. If you know your cause number, print that on the instrument, as well.

If making a payment for someone else, clearly print their name on the cashier's check or money order, and put a note inside the envelope, explaining that you are making the payment for someone else, and where the receipt needs to be sent.

When payments are made by mail, the receipt will be available at the next office visit, or will be mailed if you live out of town. A temporary receipt will be given for payments made at the reception window after the bookkeeping office has closed. Keep that temporary receipt until the permanent receipt is given to you, and compare the amounts to ensure that the payment was posted correctly.

Always obtain a receipt, check all receipts to ensure that the payment was correctly posted to you, and keep all permanent receipts until your case has expired and you are sure that all monies paid have been credited to your account.

Any discrepancies should be brought to the attention of a bookkeeper and/or your officer immediately. If you believe an error has occurred and you are not satisfied that your officer and the bookkeeping office have resolved the problem, call the department and ask to make an appointment with the Fiscal Officer, or speak with the Fiscal Officer by phone. Be prepared to show all receipts to the Fiscal Officer, or mail copies of all receipts and explain the discrepancy so the issue can be researched fully.

Making payments is an important part of community supervision, and must be done regularly. Questions about making payments should be addressed to a bookkeeper or the community supervision officer, but problems in making the payments should always be addressed with the supervision officer.

Need More Monthly Report Forms?

Your officer may have directed you to this Web site to download additional monthly report forms. Click here to download forms now. Remember that mailing in a form does not substitute for reporting unless you have specific instructions from your officer that mailing in a form is acceptable. If you have questions, call your officer at (979) 361-4410.