Men's Breakfast, July 12, 2014
The Men’s Breakfast Group met Saturday, July 12th with Mark Winkler, supervisor of the Freeport office of the Brazoria County Community Supervision and Corrections Department, also known as the adult probation department. Mark was born and raised in Illinois. He went to college and majored in criminal justice, instead of following the family’s tradition of employment or the military right out of high school. After college he came to Houston since a brother who was already in Houston had said that there were jobs in Texas. He applied to the Harris county Probation department and was immediately hired, which would not happen today. He met a girl from Freeport and married her. After several years in Houston he went to Florida for a non-government job. His wife persuaded him to come back home to Texas where he was hired by the Brazoria County probation department. He has risen to be supervisor of the Freeport office.
The Adult Probation department is part of the judicial branch of the government and reports to the judges of the county. It is separate from the adult parole department (part of the executive branch of the government) and from the juvenile probation department. The Probation department deals only with adults who are convicted of a crime but have not been sent to jail. The parole department deals with adults who are coming out of jail.
A person convicted of a Class A misdemeanor or a State Jail felony can be put on probation or deferred adjudication instead of being sent to jail. Deferred adjudication means that if the person completes probation successfully the conviction will be removed from his record, but not the arrest. It is very difficult to get an arrest removed form a record so a person with deferred adjudication may find it difficult to get hired by a company that refuses to hire people with an arrest and not with just a conviction.
A person on probation is not given free ride for a crime. He has to report to the probation officer once a week to once a month, depending on the crime. He has to pay restitution if the crime has a victim. He has to pay fees to the probation department. Probation fees cover 35% of the costs of the department. If the person is required to wear a monitor he must pay for it himself. The ankle monitor for DWI, which measures alcohol in sweat, costs $377 per month. A DWI also incurs a $1000 per year fee to be paid directly to the state department of public safety. The total cost of a first DWI conviction and probation is about $15,000. Mark said that in Harris County some people are refusing probation and opting to go to jail instead because of the cost of probation.
Mark said that almost all cases the department handles involve alcohol or drugs. DWI cases are a big portion and so are drug possession cases. Even theft cases involve drugs because most theft cases stem from a person stealing to support his habit. He said that there has been a big increase in prescription pain killer abuse recently. The state registry for epiphedrine has cut down on meth labs, but the same strategy has been difficult to apply to prescription drugs because of HIPPA regulations. As a consequence of these alcohol and drug abuse problems, probationers are forbidden to consume alcohol any time or place. A probationer may not have a glass of wine with a family celebration. This is enforced by a blood test that checks for enzymes active in alcohol metabolism which will tell if a person has consumed alcohol in the past week. This new test caught several people who would stop drinking a day before an appointment.
Probationers need to be employed, but a record can make it difficult to get a job. The department has a list of companies that will hire probationers. A couple of examples are American Rice and Freeport Welding. Successful probationers who move up in a company can often hire new probationers. The also encourage training. On probationer was enabled to enroll in an underwater welding course and now earns up to six figures annually.
Mark said that about a third of the probationers are basically law abiding who made a mistake and go through pro
bation with no help, for example a professional with a first time DUI arrest. Another third are basically criminals for whom probation is just a stepping stone to prison. The last third are people for whom probation intervention makes a difference between whether they become good citizens or criminals. These are the people that make the probation officers’ jobs rewarding.
The men had an interesting discussion and a good breakfast. The next meeting will be August 9th with Brian Adams, police chief of the BISD police force.