This Radio Program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/?p=67

Len Sipes: Hi and welcome to the radio version of D.C. Public Safety. I’m your host Len Sipes. Today’s program, I think, is extraordinarily interesting. We’re going to be talking about GPS or global positioning system tracking of offenders. It’s also known as satellite tracking of offenders. Today we have with us the branch chief. The person in charge of the Special Supervision Services branch, Kathleen Terri Crusor and we have Carlton Butler. He is the manager for the GPS unit and to Kathy and to Carlton, welcome to D.C. Public Safety.

Kathleen Crusor: Good morning Len. Thanks. It’s always a pleasure should I have an opportunity to share with the community the innovative supervision opportunities that we have. GPS is just an example of that innovation and how well you’re going to utilize it to supervise offenders.

Len Sipes: Well, there’s a wide array of supervision strategies in terms of what we do here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency and we talk about sex offenders in particular although we’re using GPS or satellite tracking of offenders not just on sex offenders. We’re using it for domestic violence cases. We’re using it for violent offenders. We’re using it as an intermediate sanction. We’re using it in a wide variety of ways but the thing that really interests me is the fact that we now have over, what, 350 offenders on any given day?

Kathleen Crusor: That is correct Len. The program has really grown tremendously in the last year where we’ve gone from 90 offenders where we started retooling the program where we have now in excess of 360 offenders. I’d like Carlton to talk with you all a little bit just about the technology and how the program has grown in the last year.

Len Sipes: Well, I do want to set it up and either you or Carlton can deal with this. Number 1, what is GPS tracking of offenders? What is satellite tracking of criminal offenders? What does that mean? Carlton.

Carlton Butler: Good morning Len. I’d like to also thank you for the opportunity to speak to the public to tell them about the innovated program we’re running here at CSOSA. The satellite tracking of people is 27 satellites actually orbiting the Earth and they’re sending signals to the device that the offender would wear and we’re able to use that data to determine movement and places that the offender has gone for our benefit.

Len Sipes: Right. So, these satellites are constantly moving around the Earth, orbiting the Earth. Now, these satellites are used for a wide variety of other purposes, not just for satellite tracking of offenders but we just tap into that technology and what, we give them an anklet and they wear that anklet and that sends a signal to those satellites?

Carlton Butler: That’s correct. It’s a bracelet device that they wear on their ankle that sends signals and receives signals and then that information is updated to the master system and translated so that we can utilize the data.

Len Sipes: Now, we need to tell the public that there are 2 kinds of GPS systems. There are active tracking and there’s passive tracking. The active tracking is that we have somebody hunched over a computer 24 hours a day, 365 days a year seeing in real time where that offender is going. We use a passive system where the, what we call parole and probation agents community supervision officers, they come in the following day and take a look at that data and find out where that offender has been and whether or not the offender has violated any special conditions of his or her supervision, correct?

Carlton Butler: That is correct Len. The active system actually sends the real time information every 10 minutes. The system is actually sending signals every minute but along with the ability to actually go to any web based system and actually look that information up, I actually could go to my computer, my home-based computer at home and pull that information up at any given time. The passive system is a system as you’ve said already, it does call in information twice a day but it also, we have the ability to update the system any time we want to. In the background of that system, we have the company that provides a 24 hour coverage of the system and they’re getting the notifications of any violations as well and they have the ability to contact the probation officer and or the GPS tech people to tell us when there’s a serious violation they want us to be aware of.

Len Sipes: Okay. So, the community supervision officer known elsewhere as a parole and probation officer comes into his or her computer in the morning, logs in and can see in graphic detail where that offender has been and what that offender has been doing, correct?

Kathleen Crusor: That is the case Len and the good thing about the system is while we have an excess of 360 offenders on the system, the system is set up such that when the CSO, Community Supervision Officer, logs in, they get an actual report and a list of all the offenders they have on the system. So, at any point they can click and push and see exactly what that offender’s been doing. Whether he’s been compliant with a curfew, if he has been placed on a curfew, if he stayed out of areas where he’s been excluded from. So, it gives him a snapshot. It also has the feature that allows them to immediately recognize where an offender has been in violation. So, you don’t have to go through every thing on that list but the system will actually alert them to this is the offender I need you to look at now.

Len Sipes: Right. So, the idea, say, we mandate that that offender stay home at night. We mandate that offender stay away from all schools and areas where kids hang out and if this offender is suddenly, you know, next to a playground and spent a half an hour at that playground, we know immediately that that offender is in violation.

Kathleen Crusor: Absolutely. That is correct. As soon as they log on their system to check it, they will get an alert that this offender has gone in an area that the system has been set up to notify us as an exclusion.

Len Sipes: Okay. And if we have somebody in terms of domestic violence case and he has a stay away order from that other person and if he is in proximity of that person’s house, we also get that alert immediately.

Carlton Butler: That’s correct also Len. We have the ability to build what we call an inclusion and exclusion zone. The inclusion zone is the zone that we build around the offender’s home or the place that we want them to report to that tells us what time they reported and what time they actually left. The exclusion zone also places where we want the offender to stay away from and the moment that he or she goes in that area, we can immediately get notifications. And I also want to say by the way too, it’s not always with the computer. We have the ability with this particular software to set it up so we can receive instant notifications by way of pagers and cell phone notifications as well that can ultimately alert us to go to the computer and actually see more details but we also have that extra added as well.

Len Sipes: Right. If you have a high risk offender and this individual is really known to be out there actively engaged in this sort of thing, the CSO can go to that computer at any time of the day or night and intervene immediately if necessary in terms of contacting MPD, Metropolitan Police Department or other law enforcement agency saying that this individual that we’re really concerned about is hanging out at the playground again. Correct?

Kathleen Crusor: Absolutely. That is the ability that technology has and we also have a partnership with the local law enforcement to include not only metropolitan police department but the U.S. capital police, Prince Georges county police who also have been trained and given access to the VariTrac system which is a data system that the information is dumped into so when we and our partner in information sharing meetings identify an offender who is known to have high risk behavior.

Len Sipes: Then they can go on that system and track him themselves.

Kathleen Crusor: Absolutely. They have the ability to go in and see from time to time or as often as they would like. Just, what’s going on with this offender and it’s been very helpful because there are times when just the street level parole, excuse me, patrol officers with the computers in their cars have contacted the supervisors to say, I’m in this area, I see this individual, according to their tracks, he’s in a violation because he’s got to stay away from this area. Do you all want me to initiate an arrest or should I have him report to you? So, it gives us the ability to type of partnership communication as well as let the offender know, you’ve got a lot of eyes out in the community watching you. So, we can immediately act and that’s particularly important when you’re looking at domestic violence situations and stay away so we don’t want to have another victim.

Len Sipes: Sure. So, we have that level of corporation. MPD can pull it up in their computers in their cars; can pull up the VariTrac system. Detectives can do that as well if they have a particular concern about a particular offender.

Carlton Butler: Yes Len. That is and I want to add also to that is that the metropolitan police and the law enforcement partners in the area are also using our system for the purpose of determining whether or not our offenders may have been involved in or may have been a witness of any new crime in the city. Actually, they can go in the software and plug in a specific time and a date of a particular crime and run it and see whether or not one of our offenders may have been either in the area and or a witness to a crime. So, it’s a really nice system. It allows all the partners in law enforcement to have an extra additive to prevent reoccurrences of crime in the city.

Len Sipes: Sure and to catch the bad guy if the bad guy goes out there and does a bad thing. Okay. I wanted to bring up a couple background issues. California is in the process of mandating that everybody leaving the prison system with a violent offence have GPS tracking. They’re in the process of starting that. We have just reviewed a piece of research out of New Jersey in terms of high risk sex offenders where they studied 250 high risk sex offenders who were under GPS monitoring and only 1 out of the 250 had committed another sex crime. Now, the violation rate, the official violation rate for sex offenders re offending with another sex offense is about 5%. Now, we all know that that’s an under count. We all know that the vast majority of sex offenses are not reported to law enforcement. We know that that’s a real problem. In fact, there’s research that basically says that as far as they’re concerned that the actually re offending rate is actually 2 to 3 times as much and for some extremely high risk sex offenders, it’s much more than that. So, there’s a movement throughout this country to place more offenders on GPS tracking. The fact that we have in the city of Washington, D.C. 360 offenders on any given day, that’s an amazing amount of offenders. That’s a lot of people. There are states throughout this country that don’t have that number on any given day. So, little D.C. seems to be taking the lead and other states also seem to be vigorously perusing this whole concept of GPS tracking of offenders. So, my question is why? Why are we doing this? What benefit does it have to public safety? What benefit does it have across the board?

Kathleen Crusor: Well, Len. I’m happy to say that we’ve been very proactive here at CSOSA in the District of Columbia recognizing the utilities of the technology. When you start talking about the benefits of it, they’re broad. It’s an opportunity to increase levels of public safety by being proactive and tracking those offenders and monitoring behavior patterns of offenders where either their criminal histories or behaviors or information, particularly in the instance of sex offenders that comes out through supervision activities or treatment processes that suggest that they need to be monitored more closely. This technology gives us the ability to actually do that. As you’ve indicated, New Jersey has recently started to utilize an increased amounts of GPS tracking and I think the other jurisdictions recognize just the opportunities there are to prevent additional crime. One of our mottos here for the sex offender units are no new victims. This technology gives us an opportunity to better insure that because of the ability that we have to monitor, curtail, and basically direct an offender’s behavior outside of the sex offender unit. It’s been particularly useful in the areas of domestic violence and supervision. As you know, the media has shown some of the very violent crimes whether dousing the fire with other things. This gives us an opportunity to safe guard the victim, as well as contain the offender’s behavior by showing that he is not stalking or involved in any negative behavior as it relates to re offending. So, overall I think folks in the law enforcement community recognize the advantage it gives us to have an extra set of electronic eyes if you will out there on the offender.

Len Sipes: Okay. Now getting back to the story before, it’s just not sex offenders. We use it for domestic violence and we use it for violent offenders across the board. Now, do we use this as what we in the business call it an intermediate sanction where the person is for lack of a technical and more appropriate term, screwing up, under supervision and we basically say, look we’re sick and tired of this. We’ve given you a variety of chances. You haven’t reformed your behavior. You’re now on GPS monitoring. By the way, you’ve got to stay at home at night, you have a curfew. If you step out of that home at night, we know instantaneously that you’re away from that house. So, you’re allowed to go from your house to work and back and beyond that, you’re under a curfew. I mean, that’s a pretty powerful tool. We can confine that person to a certain section of the city. We can confirm that person to a particular part of the community and we can confine that person to his house.

Kathleen Crusor: Absolutely Len and unfortunately, the offenders who now recognize, for them the disadvantage of having to be locked down as well call it; it’s been a very effective deterrent in some instance to modifying and changing some of the behavior because not only can we lock you down for certain periods during the day, we lock you down for entire weekends. If there’s no viable reason that you need to be outside of your house from Friday night until Monday morning, you can be placed on weekend house arrest, if you will, utilizing this technology. We’ve also used it to sanction folks from anywhere from missed office visits to positive drug tests; even to motivate individuals to get employment and we found it to be particularly effective in that area. Interestingly enough, many of the supervision officers have utilized strategies of same until you get employment from this time to this time; you need to remain at home unless you’re not out there doing something productive in the community. And we’ve seen our levels of employment with offenders increase. All of a sudden they can find jobs Len which is funny.

Len Sipes: We have a day reporting unit and that is for those guys who just can’t seem to find employment and we say, okay, you’re spending your days doing nothing. You’re now going to spend your days with us learning how to do a GED, learning how to develop an interview strategy doing a resume, and suddenly the whole slew of these guys suddenly find work before they will go to that day reporting center. I’m assuming the same sort of thing applies to GPS. It’s like, no you haven’t found work over the last 2 months, we’re tired of this, you’re not coming and telling us what you’re doing to develop that job capacity, so you’re now going to be on GPS and you’re going to be on GPS until you find work.

Kathleen Crusor: And all of a sudden, miraculously, the skills that they did not have, they secure employment Len. So, it’s been a very effective deterrent and tool for the offenders and a sanctioning as well of a motivational option that the CSO’s have begun to use as well as we can put an offender on from anywhere from 2 weeks up to 6 months so we have the ability of setting those to interrupt and change behavior.

Len Sipes: Now, do we start off any offenders at the beginning of their supervision on GPS? Carlton.

Carlton Butler: Yes we do start off some offenders first. Actually, Len we’re actually receiving in some examples court orders from judges placing people on GPS as a part of the condition for the release but also I wanted,

Len Sipes: Did that include probation as well as people coming out of the probation system?

Carlton Butler: Yes.

Len Sipes: Okay. So, we have probationers and paroles who are under GPS tracking?

Carlton Butler: That’s correct. We do.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Carlton Butler: But I wanted to add one more thing that Kathy touched on a little bit and that was in some examples we found it to be a benefit to some of the offenders to be in the program and in fact we’ve had some that have come in the office to be taken out of the program and asked us to call their probationer’s office and ask for an extension because they didn’t want to come off the program because they believe that it added some structure to their lives.

Len Sipes: And that’s one of the things that I wanted to imply and get to because people listening to this program are going to,some people could say you guys are just being too heavy handed. There’s a lot of individuals in our experience and I’ve been around for a long time in terms of working with offenders. You guys know a thousand times more than I do and a lot of individuals need structure. They need the heavy hand of fate over top of them and suddenly they’re getting their GED, suddenly they’re getting employed, suddenly they’re completing their drug treatment or complying with drug testing. There’s a lot of people out there who simply need the structure that GPS provides to do what it is that they should do to begin with, correct?

Kathleen Crusor: That is true Carlton and it does assist them in keeping their behavior and activities structured. And for many of them, it even assists them in dealing with some of the issues of peer pressure because where before they’re not comfortable telling one of their buddies on the street, man I’ve got to get out of here or I’ve got to get in because you know I’m just not supposed to be doing this. It’s the right thing to do. They now utilize the fact that I’ve got this on my ankle guys. You know they’re going to be on me. So, they utilize that to stand up to their peers.

Len Sipes: I’ve heard that story a thousand times where they’re all on the street corner and there is a J being passed around and they’re talking about doing something that they shouldn’t be doing and they lift up that pants leg and everybody goes, we understand. We understand why you can’t get involved in that behavior because we understand that you’re under GPS tracking.

Kathleen Crusor: Right. So, until they get the wherewithal or the esteem or ability to themselves to stand up and say, hey guys I can’t do this. I don’t want to go back in. They utilize that to say look you know I’m strapped as they would call it. So, I’ve got to get out of here. So, it’s been very effective in that way of changing the behaviors of those offenders.

Len Sipes: And I think that’s a very important point but just to elaborate on it a little bit more because yeah we do have an immense amount of power and we’ve got to be cognizant of that power. We don’t put people back in the prison willy nilly. We give them multiple, multiple opportunities to straighten out their behavior. And so it’s not necessarily a heavy handed program. In a lot of instances, you will find people who will get in as you said before Kathy, the idea of finding employment. GPS is a great motivator for doing what it is that you should do. There are people involved in treatment and who are successfully completely treatment. There are people who are getting their GED’s. There are people developing resumes. There are people who are doing the things that they should have done to begin with. They simply had to have the structure that the GPS program gives them. If they know that they’re being watched 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, you can’t say, hey I went to the employment office but the crowds were endless and you can look at the GPS system and go, no you didn’t go. I want the drug treatment but it was closed that day. No you didn’t. We know exactly where you were at that hour of the day.

Kathleen Crusor: Exactly and it minimizes a lot of the manipulation that the offenders have traditionally utilized to avoid supervision accountability.

Len Sipes: Now, everybody tests the system at the beginning. Everybody will go outside that exclusion area to see what happens. Everybody will try to take the GPS device off to see what happens. Everybody wants to tamper with it just to see what happens. So, they test the system at the beginning correct?

Carlton Butler: Yes they do Len. They do test the system but one of the exciting things about the system is that the moment that they do, we automatically get alerts and things that will tell us that something has occurred and we can follow up with that. I also wanted to say, the system itself just so you know a little bit about the system is that not only do we have the ability to see everywhere the offender go, we have the ability to also pull up pictures of the system that actually tells us too. So, if one of the offenders tells us that he or she went to a specific location, we can not only do tracks to see that they actually went there, we’re able to pull up pictures of the building as well to see that’s where they went. One of the most important tools,

Len Sipes: Wait. Let’s develop that a little bit because I’m glad you brought that up because when the demonstration was there, we have maps of the entire city and we have what is it, Google earth that we use on this particular program? So, we can actually overlay Google earth and overlay the maps of the city. So, if the map doesn’t give the detail that we’re looking for, we zoom in on Google earth and we go, okay. The map doesn’t show that there’s a playground here but Google earth very clearly shows it. That’s why he’s doing what he’s doing. So, it’s a really sophisticated system.

Carlton Butler: It is a very sophisticated system because sometimes we don’t always know that a violation has occurred but by going through and looking at the tracks and looking at the actual movement of that particular day of the offender, we can learn then that there may have been a violation that we might want to address. One of the things the system also will tell us, not only as I said earlier, pull up pictures, but it also tells us how long the offender was in a specific area. It will tell us how he traveled. Whether or not it was by foot or if he traveled by car or bus. So, we’re able to tell all kinds of things by simply looking at the system and again sometimes it tells us a little more by viewing the points as opposed to actually waiting for some kind of alert.

Len Sipes: Alright and I just want to emphasize again that mode of travel, if there’s a robbery on the subway, we instantaneously go in, plug in the time, plug in the coordinates and find out which of our offenders were in that area at that particular time. So, we can solve a crime instantaneously that would not be solved before.

Kathleen Crusor: And that is true and we have actually utilized the system to assist the police in solving crimes where an offender has adamantly sworn I was not there, I had nothing to do with it but the tracks put him there at the exact time. But also on the flip side, the offenders have an appreciation for the fact it’s also proven that they haven’t been somewhere to do something. So,

Len Sipes: And that’s a way of clearing their name instantaneously. So, they could have the police department, one of the law enforcement agencies or the metropolitan police department can suspect that it’s Len Sipes and it automatically clears Len Sipes away because it was clear that he was 2 miles away from that area at the time the crime occurred.

Kathleen Crusor: Absolutely and we’ve had instances where other people have tried to kind of put the crimes off on an offender because they know they have that history. So, that particular perpetrator figured, okay, well I can put it off on him and we’ve been able to clear that individual and sometimes identify who that was based on relationships the offender has with other people. So, it’s a powerful tool for supervision. Not only us but a crime fighting tool with the whole crime mapping and all that we do with the technology.

Len Sipes: And the constant information that we share with the metropolitan police department and other law enforcement agencies because this department is, court services and offender supervision agency is very proud of its relationships with local law enforcement. We share information and intelligence every day with hundreds of folks in local law enforcement. Let’s get back to the treatment process a little bit if we could. The sex offenders, I mean, we use polygraph machines. We have the capacity to go in and take a look at their computers. We have a capacity to see their computers remotely. I can never, there’s no politically correct way of saying this but there’s a device that measures arousal and I’ll just leave it at there. There’s a wide array of technology that we have at our disposal. Again, not necessarily to track down the person; although, public safety is our first responsibility but also at the same time to assist that person in terms of the overall treatment process. And that treatment process applies to domestic violence offenders and can apply to violent offenders in terms of anger management therapy. So, it’s just not, again, there’s just not a way of catching them doing something wrong or clearing them from accusations of crime. Once again, it is also a vital tool in terms of making sure that that person completes the treatment process that we say is absolutely necessary for public safety; for the offender’s successful reintegration into society.

Len Sipes: That is correct Len. It’s another opportunity for us to assist the offender in being accountable and it’s often seen as a way of supporting them to insure that they work through and get through the system and the treatment modalities that they’re involved in whether it be the sex offender, the mental health, the anger management and even the substance abuse because it helps them to as you said, stay within the boundaries. In instance of substance abusers, if they know the areas where folk are using, then in some instances they may speak what their CSO’s and request, can you put an exclusion area round this. I’m not strong enough to handle this now but maybe if I can get an exclusion area here, that’s some added support for me there. Also, knowing that you can see whether I went to treatment or not, knowing in the situations of anger management, offenders who we have them in groups on the days that I went. It just gives them added support and accountability for the supervision process.

Len Sipes: And that’s something I think a lot of people don’t quite understand that in my 20 years of directly dealing with offenders, structure is such an extraordinarily part of to such an extraordinary aspect of their well being because people say, well you drug test them to much or you watch them to much or you supervise them to much or now you’ve got GPS and my response is, believe it or not, this is in their best interest. Believe it or not, these are individuals through either the treatment process or the drug testing process or the supervision process. They need this level of structure because if they’re by themselves, they’re going to re offend. This gives them every opportunity not to re-offend again and in some cases as we said before, provides them with an excuse to their fellow offenders not to re offend again.

Kathleen Crusor: That’s absolutely correct Len. All of us need structure. I know if I didn’t have to get up and go to work every day and pay my bills and all, I might not be motivated.

Len Sipes: You wouldn’t do this for free?

Kathleen Crusor: To do this for free so my structure is accountability. Well, the offenders don’t quite have that internal motivation yet. So, this helps them get there in some instances to know that I’ve got to be accountable to a process. We all need structure. Our children in their lives need structures, the offenders. This is an opportunity to help them build that structure until they can do it themselves.

Len Sipes: Speaking of structure, I’ve often threatened with my daughters to put GPS tracking devices on their cars and they look at me and they smile and go you’re kidding aren’t you dad? And I’m going, no.

Kathleen Crusor: Let me just say, every parent with a teenager would have an appreciation for this technology.

Len Sipes: Amen. Where do we go to in the future? I mean, we have 360 offenders on any given day. That’s a lot. We have 15,000 offenders on any given day. So, I mean, do we expand this to 600 in a couple years? Do we go beyond this? Is 360 where we need to be?

Kathleen Crusor: Len, we have recently just looked at the possibilities and just assessing our need for expanding the use because we have been so successful with the technology. We’ve increased the budget allocations that go to the program which will allow us in the upcoming year to utilize GPS tracking for more offenders. As the technology grows, we have an opportunity to increase and look at how we utilize it and to have the offenders as well as the CSO’s have an opportunity to benefit from the technology.

Len Sipes: Carlton, final words as we close out the program? That’s always a tough question, I realize.

Carlton Butler: That is a very touch question.

Len Sipes: We’re all very proud of this.

Carlton Butler: Yes I’m really excited about the program. I think that it adds a lot of benefits to public safety. I believe that, again, there’s some appreciation from the offender for the program and I’m just excited about where we have the ability to go in the future with the program.

Len Sipes: Carlton, I’m going to let you have the final word. Ladies and gentlemen, this is D.C. Public Safety. My name is Leonard Sipes. Look at our website which is www.csosa.gov for more information on the court services and offender supervision agency. Please have yourselves a very pleasant day.

This Television Program is available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/video/?p=11

[Video Begins]

Segment One

Leonard Sipes: Hi, and welcome to D.C. Public Safety, I’m Len Sipes. The show today focuses on the high-risk drug offender, and as you know, newspaper articles for the last 40 years have made this person a point of major concern. The question is whether or not the high-risk drug offender can be successfully supervised and treated. Can they become productive crime-free citizens? To answer that question, we have two individuals on our first segment; one currently under supervision by my agency, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, and one who has successfully completed supervision; they are Ronald Wade and Marissa Johnson. In the second segment we will interview two supervisory community supervision officers who supervise and assist high-risk drug offenders on a daily basis. And with that, welcome Ronald Wade and Marissa Johnson, and welcome to D.C. Public Safety.

Marissa Johnson: Hi, how are you?

Leonard Sipes: Hi. Marissa, Ronald, tell me a little bit about your backgrounds, your crime backgrounds and your drug backgrounds. Because what we’re talking about in this program is a person heavily involved in crime, heavily involved in drugs, and whether or not society can meaningfully do anything with these individuals besides incarcerating them? Marissa, go ahead please.

Marissa Johnson: My name is Marissa, started using drugs at the age of nine-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: …stayed on the streets for 19 years smoking crack, choice of drug was crack cocaine.

Leonard Sipes: And at the age of nine, what did you start using?

Marissa Johnson: Marijuana, PCP, I left from PCP to acid, after acid, crack cocaine.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. And why do you think you started as early as you did?

Marissa Johnson: Well I had abandonment issues.

Leonard Sipes: Had what now?

Marissa Johnson: Abandonment issues.

Leonard Sipes: And what you’re describing in terms of what we call the high-risk drug offender, that’s not unusual.

Marissa Johnson: No, it’s not.

Leonard Sipes: Early age of onset, early use of drugs, having family issues, that’s common, it’s common in the research and it’s common to all of the offenders that I’ve talked to throughout my criminal justice career. So what about the crime part of it?

Marissa Johnson: Crime part of it started at the age of 19.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: I got arrested very first time for just giving a guy a ride, but he had PCP on him-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: …but I got arrested also.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: And after that I copped the habit-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: Hey, it just was ongoing, ongoing.

Leonard Sipes: A lot of theft?

Marissa Johnson: No theft, a lot of possessions-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: I got distributions.

Leonard Sipes: Drug dealer.

Marissa Johnson: Distribution.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. You were caught up in that whole drug dealing world.

Marissa Johnson: Distribution.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. Violence is an inherent part of the whole drug dealing world, is it not?

Marissa Johnson: Exactly.

Leonard Sipes: Were you involved in the violence?

Marissa Johnson: I’ve seen a guy’s head blown off a couple time.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: In and out-like I said, in and out, back and forth, it was back and forth, back and forth, until this got to the point where my last time I didn’t think I was gonna come home.

Leonard Sipes: When I talk to the community supervision officers within my agency who deal with the high-risk drug offender, they tell me in many cases it’s like dealing with a person who has been a veteran at war. They’ve seen so many people hurt, so many people dying, so many people lives destroyed, that they become, you know, damaged in that process as people, am I right or wrong?

Marissa Johnson: It is so easy to get into and it’s still taking time for me to undo what I have done. Acceptance plays a big part of my life today, accepting the things I can not change.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: CSOSA has been wonderful to me-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: -absolutely to the utmost. Without CSOSA I may be dead.

Leonard Sipes: What programs are we talking about that you got involved in?

Marissa Johnson: CSOSA came to the D.C. jail to give me an opportunity to come back to the streets.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: At that time I was still toxic.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: And I had no idea what I was signing, I had no sense of direction, all I knew, I wanted to come to the street.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: They gave me a chance and opportunity to start my life over again.

Leonard Sipes: All right.

Marissa Johnson: Okay, I signed my name on the dotted line not knowing what I was getting myself into.

Leonard Sipes: Yep.

Marissa Johnson: But when I met my probation officer, it was a book of a different color.

Leonard Sipes: Yeah, I hear you. We want to get back to that and talk a little bit about that, but Ronald, your story, and when did you start drugs?

Ronald Wade: Probably age of 16.

Leonard Sipes: At the age of 16, and what drugs were they?

Ronald Wade: Started out with alcohol-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Ronald Wade: -and graduated to marijuana-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Ronald Wade: -and then ran the table-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Ronald Wade: -every drug that you could conceive of, the hallucinogenics, marijuana, cocaine, heroine, but my drug of choice was labeled as heroine.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. And your criminal background?

Ronald Wade: My criminal background is mostly dealing with property crimes and crimes against myself, distribution, you know, no violence involved in it.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Ronald Wade: Although I have been witness to countless occasions of violence taking place in the street and even in the institutions.

Leonard Sipes: Yeah, and that’s again, a big part of when I talk to the community supervision officers, and this is the same question I posed to Marissa, when I speak to the community supervision officers who deal with the high-risk drug offender, they describe you guys as many ways as almost as battle-scarred veterans, and that has an impact on your ability to escape this. There’s a certain point where the violence becomes almost accepted, there’s a certain point where the violence and the disruption becomes almost a day-to-day thing.

Ronald Wade: When you’re involved in the lifestyle of the street and from an institutional standpoint, you tend to become desensitized. I mean, you don’t have the sensitivity that a normal human being has in relationship to how you feel when a person is experiencing traumatic experiences in your life. In the institution, if you see an individual who is stabbed multiple numbers of times, your best outlook is to ignore that situation because you have to think past that situation.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Ronald Wade: If you decide to assist that individual, then the thing is you have to think, ‘am I gonna be the last person that he speaks to before he expire, so that whoever did what they did to him, will come looking for me?’

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Ronald Wade: So this is the street mentality that goes on, and I mean, it’s dealing with the value system.

Leonard Sipes: Well, and I agree with the value system, but let’s get around to the programs a little bit. Marissa said that she was involved in programs through the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, were you involved in any programs?

Ronald Wade: Yes, through CSOSA, thank God for CSOSA and Mr. Brown at the South Capitol Street office because he made a determination with me that I had one or two choices: either I could go into treatment or I could suffer the consequences of a warrant being issued.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Ronald Wade: Well, I didn’t want to go to jail-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Ronald Wade: -so I opted to take treatment. But in the process of taking the treatment, I was exposed to, you know, the different components that go along with the rehabilitation process. But what I had to do was make myself accessible and open to the information because all the necessary components for a person to become crime-free and drug-free, CSOSA provides.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Ronald Wade: I came through what was then known as AOC-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Ronald Wade: -Assessment and Orientation Center. And the therapeutic concepts from a psychological standpoint, from a health standpoint, from a spiritual standpoint, all of these things that I was exposed to and the information that was provided to me that would enable me to turn my life around. But I had to be willing to accept the information.

Leonard Sipes: Well, and that’s the problem, the problem is that in so many cases when I talk to offenders who have successfully come away from a life or the crime who are now working, who are now drug-free, who are now out-you know, they’re taxpaying citizens, they’re no longer a burden of society. It is reaching that point where I’ve heard a hundred times, a thousand times from heroine addicts especially, ‘I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.’ And when they’ve reached that point, then they climb back through programs, but is there a way or reaching out to offenders who haven’t reached that point? Obviously you guys are not in your 20s, you’re not in your teens, you’ve had some experience to use as a way of reaching out to the younger offenders to see if we can pull them out of the same cycle and get them involved in treatment and get them away from a life of violence and away from a life of crime; is there a way of doing that? That’s a tough question, I understand.

Marissa Johnson: I have a daughter that’s out there now.

Leonard Sipes: She’s out on the street?

Marissa Johnson: She’s out there.

Leonard Sipes: She’s part of the lifestyle?

Marissa Johnson: She’s part of the lifestyle.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: Prayer.

Leonard Sipes: Yeah, prayer is right. I will say a prayer.

Marissa Johnson: Prayer is first. They say you can take a horse to the water but you can’t make him drink.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: I have all the information, I use my information every day. I wear a tool belt when I walk out my front door.

Leonard Sipes: You wear a what belt?

Marissa Johnson: A tool belt.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: Because I collect it from Second Genesis as well as from CSOSA-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: -it’s fully loaded.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: I strap up everyday-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: -looking anything that may come my way-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: -this addiction is cunningly baffling.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: Okay. Acceptance-she’s not ready.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. And I hear that from so many offenders, and that’s part of the tragedy in terms of dealing with high-risk drug offenders or people who are out there doing a lot of drugs, doing a lot of crime, reaching out and pulling them back out of that pit. Because all three of us know that it’s a terrible, terrible pit to be in. It’s one of the hardest things in the world to do until you’re ready to make that transformation.

Marissa Johnson: I’m on a tough love right now-

Leonard Sipes: All right.

Marissa Johnson: -for my daughter.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. Paul, I had questions about reaching to those younger offenders.

Ronald Wade: Well the desire has to come from within. I mean, once the desire comes from within, then everything is already in place to assist an individual. But you can make the information available, but until a person is willing to access that information and make use of it, it’s just out there.

Leonard Sipes: Yeah. Now, we talked a little bit before the program, we didn’t do a lot of preparation, I never do a lot of preparation with my guests on this program, I like it spontaneous. But we said, you know, the average person out there watching this show is going to say to themselves, ‘wait a minute, Ronald or Marissa, you’ve done a lot of crime, you’ve done a lot of drugs-and if we have money to give, let’s give it to the school kids, let’s give it to the elderly, let’s plug it in the schools. I don’t want to give it to criminal offenders, they’ve done terrible things to themselves and to other people, why should I-’

Marissa Johnson: I’m gonna stop you right there.

Leonard Sipes: Go, please.

Marissa Johnson: The only way I keep what I have is to give back to the newcomer.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: That’s everyday-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: -if it’s just a phone call-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: -like somebody did for me.

Leonard Sipes: But explain that, you’re giving back to the who the newcomer is-

Marissa Johnson: The newcomer, the person that just has an hour clean-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: -just that person, just to say hello, just to give you my phone number.

Leonard Sipes: All right.

Marissa Johnson: Just to say we can do a movie together, just to say I’ll take you to lunch.

Leonard Sipes: To maintain that connection to pull that person out-

Marissa Johnson: I have to give back-

Leonard Sipes: All right.

Marissa Johnson: -what somebody gave me.

Leonard Sipes: All right.

Marissa Johnson: -which was some words.

Leonard Sipes: All right, so your response to all of this is that you’re giving back, you’re out of that, and the programs are extremely important.

Marissa Johnson: Very.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: Very, very.

Leonard Sipes: Ronald, same question, and it’s a tough question, I understand.

Ronald Wade: But it’s a realistic question, but it has to be some type of input from a financial standpoint to finance these programs because the problem is not going to go away. And if it’s not addressed, you know, from the programs that’s established, you know, through your agency and through other self-help agencies, you know, it’s gonna get worse.

Leonard Sipes: How many people-well, I know the answer for myself, but for you guys, if those programs weren’t there-the GED programs, the job placement programs, the mental health programs, the drug treatment programs, if these programs were just away, they disappeared and all we did was supervise you guys, what would happen-and supervise people like you? All we did was supervise, no programs.

Marissa Johnson: We would lose a lot of-it would be a lot of people still dying from this disease of addiction.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: It really would. I’ve had numbers of doors shut in my face because of my criminal background, let’s go back to that.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: But I had an excellent probation officer-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: -Bridget Nemo-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Marissa Johnson: -that was-the phone-every time I called, she picked up.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: I even interrupted a meeting down at the office one day because I needed to talk to her-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: -about what was going on in my life.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: Okay.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: It’s that same thing of talking to some-getting through it, you know.

Leonard Sipes: Getting through it.

Marissa Johnson: Okay, and I’ve had, at last, one day just asked for a job, it was so hard for me to get employment. And I just maintained-just got really getting into getting the job that I really want because of my criminal background.

Ronald Wade: And the answer to your question-

Leonard Sipes: Yeah, please, Paul.

Ronald Wade: -the crime rate would skyrocket. If those programs that you just mentioned failed to exist, GED, job training programs, and self-help programs, the crime rate would skyrocket. Because you have an idle mind, an idle is the devil’s workshop. If you don’t have anything constructive or positive to do, then you’re going to regress back to what you’re generally familiar with, which is the criminal element. I mean, that’s the only way you see a survival because that’s the only way you know how to survive, is putting your criminal skills to work. And unless you have something to replace those skills from a constructive point of view, you will continue to do the same thing.

Leonard Sipes: And I understand that because-and I’m not quite sure the public understands it, I spoke to a women one time who was deeply involved in drugs, deeply involved in crime, committed literally thousands upon thousands of crimes if you count all the drug dealings and all the thefts-and that’s what she said. I mean, she’s now managing a business and she now has her home and she’s reunited with her kids, because so many kids are involved in all of this as well. And that’s what she said, that if those programs disappeared, all it’s doing is endangering the public. The thousands of crimes that she was committing, she’s no longer committing. She is a taxpayer rather than a tax burden, and that was her point of view.

Marissa Johnson: And that’s the same as being homeless in a sense. You don’t have anything, you’re homeless. You write down on your application you’re homeless because you don’t have your name on a lease anywhere.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: And my question was-my biggest problem was when I got to Second Genesis, the last week of the program, I didn’t have anywhere to go.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: And I refused to leave out of the door because I wanted to change.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: So can I hold this bed? Can you call CSOSA and ask them can I stay one more week until I get some things lined up for myself?

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: Because you know, you’re just caught up on the streets, and when you get clean, you’re still numb-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Marissa Johnson: -really, and you don’t have a sense of direction.

Leonard Sipes: Right, and you’ve got the final word, Marissa and Ronald. Thank you very much for being with us on the first half.

Marissa Johnson: Thank you for having me.

Leonard Sipes: Look for us in the second half as we continue our discussion on the high-risk drug offender with two supervisory community supervision officers who supervise these kinds of individuals on a day-to-day basis. We’ll be right back.
Segment Two

Leonard Sipes: Hi, and welcome back to D.C. Public Safety, I’m Len Sipes. Our next two guests in our discussion of high-risk drug offenders are supervisory community supervision officers. They are Elizabeth Estrill and Dorian Sanders. And ladies, welcome to D.C. Public Safety. Elizabeth, the first question will go to you. You heard Ronald and Marissa’s testimony, and you work with hundreds if not thousand of high-risk drug offender throughout the course of the year. The story that they told, is this a typical story in terms of early onset of crime, early onset of criminality, the amount of drug use and the amount of crime that they commit?

Elizabeth Estrill: Yes it is.

Leonard Sipes: Okay, tell me a little bit about that.

Elizabeth Estrill: Well, I guess, you know, it’s a vicious cycle. The population that I supervise are all on the parole or supervised release-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -so they have all served some period of incarceration-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -sometimes they have been in at least three or four times because they’ve done it before-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -it’s not worked, so they’re being released and are being supervised a very high level.

Leonard Sipes: Right. So you see them a lot, and when I say a lot, it could be-I mean, it’s far more than what most parole and probation agencies throughout the country supervise offenders. You’re in contact with them a lot, you drug test the dickens out of them, you’ve got them involved in programs.

Elizabeth Estrill: Yes, most of my offenders, actually when they’re released, they are supervised in the intensive or the maximum level-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -which means I see them at least three times a week.

Leonard Sipes: Right, and three times a week is phenomenal compared to most parole and probation supervision in the country, I just wanted the public watching this TV show to understand that.

Elizabeth Estrill: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Elizabeth Estrill: They’re required to drug test at least twice.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: We do home visits at least once a month.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: We do employment verification at least once a month. So we make sure that we have a very tight, close relationship with-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -close supervision structure when they’re first released to ensure that services that are being rendered to them are rendered and that they complying to make sure that they do what they need to do to say home.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. They’re coming out of, in many cases, a program that we operate where they come out of prison and then they go into a building that we rehabbed in the District of Columbia that is a giant rehabilitation center where they come straight from prison to this building for 30 days of assessment, and then in many cases go out to inpatient treatment.

Elizabeth Estrill: Yes, sir. Most of my offenders come through the Re-entry Sanction Center, it’s a new assessment center, it’s on the grounds of the former D.C. General Hospital. They’re there for a 28 day assessment. A series of tests are ran, they look at the prior criminal history, the pre-sentence report, the reports from the institution, and after the 28 day assessment they are plugged in, they can be in treatment 190 days-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -120 days, 90 days, 30 days
Leonard Sipes: Right, but generally speaking, that’s in-house treatment, it’s not outpatient, it’s-

Elizabeth Estrill: No, the assessment is for 28 days.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: After the assessment, then they’re plugged into treatment.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: But that treatment that they’re plugged to after the 28 day assessment, that’s basically-they stay at a location-

Elizabeth Estrill: Exactly-

Leonard Sipes: -24 hours a day?

Elizabeth Estrill: -it’s inpatient.

Leonard Sipes: Okay, inpatient.

Elizabeth Estrill: Right.

Leonard Sipes: Okay, cool.

Elizabeth Estrill: Yeah.

Leonard Sipes: Dorian, you handle what, correct me if I’m wrong, the probation population-

Dorian Sanders: Yes, I do.

Leonard Sipes: -of people, not necessarily people who have been incarcerated, but in many cases they have incarceration in their backgrounds?

Dorian Sanders: Right, they do have incarceration in their background. The program that I supervise, which is STAR/HIDTA program, is a drug court program. And what we also provide is court sanctions for positive drug test results, failure to report for supervision-so once they come into our program through probation, through a judge, they go to court, the judge signs an order, they sign a contract agreeing to the terms of the program.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Dorian Sanders: They can be incarcerated for up to a maximum of 15 days-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Dorian Sanders: -depending on what the infraction is. If they fail to complete a drug treatment program, if they missed a urine test they could possibly be sanctioned for three nights in jail. The second sanction for the same infraction they would get maybe seven nights in jail.

Leonard Sipes: So they know if they screw up, which by the way in terms of the public, people say, ‘well, you know, the first drug test, let’s throw them back in the prison.’ Well, if we did that the prisons would explode tomorrow. We expect relapse, we expect problems from this population. So you’re talking about the sanctions matrix where they understand every time that they screw up-

Dorian Sanders: Right.

Leonard Sipes: -every time they give us a positive drug test, here’s what’s gonna happen as a result.

Dorian Sanders: Right, absolutely.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Dorian Sanders: And I think what it also does, it helps them to see the relationship between their drug usage and the impact that it’s having upon their lives because they’re constantly having to be interrupted by going back and forth into the prison system for even a couple of days.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Dorian Sanders: So it has them thinking about, ‘well wait a minute, I think I need to do something a little bit differently because I’m gonna be sanctioned-’

Leonard Sipes: Yeah.

Dorian Sanders: ‘-and possibly stepped back and revoked.’

Leonard Sipes: Now how difficult is it, and either one of you can answer this question, both of you can answer this question, this is the toughest, roughest population that we had to deal with beyond maybe the mental health offenders, and a lot of your offenders bring mental health issues to the table as well.

Dorian Sanders: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: I mean, you know, I’ve sat and talked with many community supervision officers who supervise this particular population, they like doing it, they like the challenge, they like being out there. But like supervising sex offenders, supervising mental health offenders, you’re population is one of the toughest imaginable because you have to crawl into the lives of these individuals. And the stories that they tell, in many cases, are tragic in terms of the, you know, starting drug use at eight, nine ten; starting crimes at eleven, 12, 13; and in many cases going for decades in terms of this pattern. And suddenly, wha-la, you’re there to try to pull them back out of a habit that they’ve been using for ten, 20, 30, 40 years.

Elizabeth Estrill: For me, it’s rewarding and it’s challenging-challenging because everyday it’s different, every life is different, every circumstance can be different. So I have to make sure that the public safe.

Leonard Sipes: Absolutely.

Elizabeth Estrill: And I also have to make sure that the people that I’m in contact with, they’re successful. Being successful to me means being productive, having a job, not using, you know, giving back to the community. Rewarding is, you know, the fact that after the end of the supervision period, that person is no longer quote/unquote ‘on papers.’

Leonard Sipes: Which means on supervision.

Elizabeth Estrill: On supervision, yes. Rewarding to me means that, you know, D.C. is a safer place-

Leonard Sipes: Sure.

Elizabeth Estrill: -you know, for me and my family to reside.

Leonard Sipes: Of course.

Elizabeth Estrill: And the fact that I can make a positive change in somebody’s life because I have a, you know-I think each person deserves an opportunity.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: And I think that the agency has given a lot of D.C. residents that opportunity to succeed. We have an awesome responsibility. The people that I supervise, the charges range from murder, burglary, I mean, it’s really high-risk. And some of it, I have a part of assisting and making my neighborhood safer-

Leonard Sipes: Sure.

Elizabeth Estrill: -you know, is very rewarding.

Leonard Sipes: Now we talked about success, we have two independent outside pieces of research from the University of Maryland that indicate that the individuals who get through the assessment center, the individuals who go through treatment, and then the individuals who are supervised by you and Dorian, they have dramatically lower rates of recidivism based upon new arrests, so obviously what you’re doing works.

Elizabeth Estrill: It does-it really, really, does. And you know, the studies show that when you have hands-on, when it’s intensive, at least when the clients first come home, you know, it usually turns out to be, you know, a better situation. Most people that are assigned to my team, they come kicking and screaming.

Leonard Sipes: Yeah.

Elizabeth Estrill: They don’t want to be there.

Leonard Sipes: They don’t want to be there, that’s right.

Elizabeth Estrill: And you know, I sit with them and I tell them, you know, what my expectations are of them and what theirs are, you know, of me. I’m here to provide a quality service-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -and I’m gonna do whatever I can to make sure that that is done. And if you can just take it one day at a time, if you can let me drive the car, okay, and be a passenger, I guarantee that it will be successful.

Leonard Sipes: Dorian, same question goes to you in terms of the difficultly of dealing with this type of individual and what you do to cope and bring these individuals along.

Dorian Sanders: I don’t find this as a difficult task, I think when the offenders know that you’re genuine and that you really care about their well being and you’re able to impart information to them that is very helpful-even for those who may not be able to grasp what is that we have to offer them, the fact that we’re able to plant a seed, whereas at some point in time during their life experience, maybe they’ll be able to grasp what it is that we were trying to give them.

Leonard Sipes: But I’ve done in a small way what you guys are doing in terms of gang counseling the streets and city of Baltimore, and the jail and Job Corp Kids, and running a group in the prison system, for me it was extraordinarily difficult. Their lives were so tragic in many ways, and dealing with the family, dealing with their kids, pulling them out was immensely taxing for me, and I found it difficult. Because I know how difficult their lives are going to be upon release and how many challenges they have. And quite frankly without the resources that we have in CSOSA, so many of them went back to crime, so many of them went back to drugs-that’s why I’m saying difficult.

Dorian Sanders: Okay. I guess for me, I don’t take it personal-

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Dorian Sanders: -I understand that this is their life experience-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Dorian Sanders: -and I also am aware of the fact that I can only do what they allow me to do.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Dorian Sanders: And that sometimes there are some experiences that people have to have that I have no control over.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Dorian Sanders: So if they have to go back into the system in order to learn or to get what it is that they need in order for them to maybe be able to come out and be productive citizens, then sometimes that’s what has to happen.

Leonard Sipes: Well I just remembered one particular instance, me and this guy’s wife, we were screaming at him. [laughs] You know, and saying, ‘how in the name of blind can you do this after all of the opportunities that you’ve been given?’ So I mean, it’s a tough field, I guess I found it to be a field. Elizabeth, where do you think we should go in terms of supervising this sort of an offender? Do we have all of the resources we need? We never claim that we have all of the resources that we need, but programs do make a difference in the lives of these offenders, correct?

Elizabeth Estrill: I think it does, I think that CSOSA is doing an awesome job, not only because I’m an employee of CSOSA, but because I have seen people’s lives that have changed. I have seen families that have stayed together, so-

Leonard Sipes: And a lot of them have children-a lot of these offenders have children, so it’s just not them-

Elizabeth Estrill: Right.

Leonard Sipes: -it’s their children as well.

Elizabeth Estrill: Exactly. My clients, my team is strictly adults, but I deal with their entire family because we go to the homes-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -whatever my clients have an issue with, I’m there, my officers are there. I have nine officers-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Elizabeth Estrill: -that are assigned to my team and one assistant, and we’re there to assist. So if the entire district-if all the teams were like my team, I would think we would be a lot better, but I mean, that’s not-

Leonard Sipes: Dorian, we only have a couple seconds left, anything-the programatic part of it? Because it’s just not supervising, it’s just not drug testing, it’s assisting them as well.

Dorian Sanders: I just think that we have a lot offer, I think we’re a unique agency compared to many other probation parole agencies throughout the country. And if we continue to bring in the programs and continue to improve upon them, the change will be just awesome in terms of how many people we’ll be able to help-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Dorian Sanders: -and we’ll be able to, you know, recover and be positive and product citizens.

Leonard Sipes: Ladies, thank you for being on the show.

Dorian Sanders: Thank you.

Elizabeth Estrill: Thanks for having us.

Leonard Sipes: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for watching D.C. Public Safety. Look at our website for this and previous shows that we have, radio and television shows on the criminal justice system. Please have yourselves a very pleasant day.

[Video Ends]

Information about crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

Meta terms: crime, criminals, criminal justice, parole, probation, prison, drug treatment, reentry, sex offenders.

[Audio Begins]

Leonard Sipes: Hi, and welcome to the radio version of D.C. Public Safety. I am your host, Len Sipes. At our microphones today is Kim Cooper. Kim is a Community Supervision Assistant with the High Risk Drug Unit. Kim, welcome to D.C. Public Safety.

Kim Cooper: Thank you.

Leonard Sipes: And what does a community supervision assistant do?

Kim Cooper: Well I’m responsible for a lot of activities and duties. My number one duty is to greet and to assign the new coming offenders into the agency.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: A CSA’s job is to prepare the offender to come in contact with-

Leonard Sipes: To be supervised.

Kim Cooper: To be supervised or to come in contact with a parole officer.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. Let’s explain to the public-we have community supervision officers, which in most jurisdictions throughout the country are referred to as parole and probation agents. So you’re not a community supervision officer, you’re a community supervision assistant.

Kim Cooper: Correct.

Leonard Sipes: So you’re the community supervision officer’s right hand person.

Kim Cooper: Absolutely. I’m the first point of contact.

Leonard Sipes: You’re the first point of contact, so that means you do most of the work then?

Kim Cooper: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: [Laughs]

Kim Cooper: That means-[Laughs]-yeah.

Leonard Sipes: Yeah, but you do. I mean, you’re the person who the offender comes into contact first.

Kim Cooper: Correct.

Leonard Sipes: And you’re the person who does all the preparation.

Kim Cooper: Absolutely. When the offender comes in, I greet the offender and I let him know exactly what in fact our unit does and what is expected of them.

Leonard Sipes: I did an article on your unit and interviewed a lot of people in your unit and wow. I mean, the high risk drug unit are probably some of the more difficult offenders that we have in Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency because they’re just not people with substance abuse backgrounds, they’re people with very, very, very lengthy substance abuse backgrounds.

Kim Cooper: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: And in many cases, very lengthy criminal histories.

Kim Cooper: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: So you may be dealing-outside of the mental health unit-you may be dealing with the toughest offenders we have here at Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.

Kim Cooper: Correct, yes.

Leonard Sipes: That’s a daunting prospect, isn’t it?

Kim Cooper: Yes it is.

Leonard Sipes: I mean, how difficult are they?

Kim Cooper: Actually it’s not very difficult, every individual is different. Everyone wants to be treated with respect and as a human.

Leonard Sipes: They haven’t gotten a lot of that in life, right?

Kim Cooper: Absolutely. A lot of them have not been taught manners, and there’s always been just-a lot of offenders really haven’t had anyone to steer them in the right direction.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: So when they come into my unit, I always practice my human side and I treat them with respect.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: And in turn, they treat me with respect.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: I demand it, they give it, and we get along just fine.

Leonard Sipes: Right. But it is a matter of expectations, right?

Kim Cooper: It’s a matter of a expectations, absolutely.

Leonard Sipes: Now you prepare the caseloads and you prepare the community supervision officer for that supervision experience by interviewing them, correct?

Kim Cooper: Well no, actually they’re assigned by the PSA, which is the area of the city that they reside in.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: If they’re-we have-like Michael Hilliard spoke up before, the RSC-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: Which is a treatment center.

Leonard Sipes: The Reentry and Sanction Center, right.

Kim Cooper: Correct. And-

Leonard Sipes: And most of your offenders go, or all of your offenders go through the Reentry and Sanction Center, correct?

Kim Cooper: Not all of the offenders.

Leonard Sipes: Not all?

Kim Cooper: There’s quite a heavy load that does.

Leonard Sipes: Okay, because you do have some parolees, and you have probationers as well, that’s right, because the probationers won’t go through the Reentry and Sanction Center.

Kim Cooper: Absolutely.

Leonard Sipes: Okay. And I should explain to the public, the Reentry and Sanction Center is sort of like a hospital wing that we control at Court Services and Offender Supervision, and it’s really amazing that parole and probation entity has its own hospital wing devoted to the assessment and treatment process of criminal offenders where they live there for 28 days and go through that assessment. We figure out what really makes them tick in terms of their substance abuse.

Kim Cooper: Correct, it’s an excellent program.

Leonard Sipes: Right, and that’s an amazing program.

Kim Cooper: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: Okay, so the people coming out of prison go through the Reentry and Sanction Center, the people on probation don’t.

Kim Cooper: Uh-huh.

Leonard Sipes: Now are you in a position to see who does better on it? [Laughs] Because I’m assuming the people who are going through the Reentry and Sanction Center are prepared for the treatment process, and the people who go through probation are not.

Kim Cooper: Well it just-in my own opinion, it depends on the individual.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: A lot of times we have a lot of offenders that come out of the program and they just fail.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: It just doesn’t click.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: We have a lot of offenders that-

Leonard Sipes: And let me go into that too, we expect relapse in drug treatment.

Kim Cooper: Correct.

Leonard Sipes: We expect problems.

Kim Cooper: Yes.

Leonard Sipes: We do not expect a person to come out of the prison system without issues.

Kim Cooper: You have a handful that-you know, they’re on one, they’re doing well.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: And they go on with their lives and they’re happy-everything’s normal.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: We have another handful that it just wasn’t enough-

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: And we have to find another form of treatment center for them.

Leonard Sipes: The ones that are successful and the ones that aren’t successful, do you ever sense as to why that is?

Kim Cooper: Personally, I believe that everyone has to hit a rock bottom.

Leonard Sipes: Okay.

Kim Cooper: There are different forms of rock bottoms. When I talk to a lot of the offenders, some things that wouldn’t necessarily be a rock bottom for one, is a rock bottom for the other.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: And I just think it’s not based solely on the program or-it’s just the individual.

Leonard Sipes: And that’s one of the reasons why we designed drug assessment and drug treatment and supervision in your unit around the individual because no two individuals are going to be alike in terms of their substance abuse history or the reasons for being involved in substance abuse.

Kim Cooper: Correct, absolutely. And a lot of times it depends on what exactly this offender dealt with in his life.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: You know, it’s different. It’s different for everyone.

Leonard Sipes: A lot of your people who I interviewed for this article simply told me that it was to mask a lot of pain in their lives.

Kim Cooper: Absolutely, that’s where a lot of the drug performance comes into play.

Leonard Sipes: Right, these big tough guys who are basically doing all this posturing-

Kim Cooper: They bigger they come, the harder they fall.

Leonard Sipes: They are nothing more than people in an immense amount of pain that use drugs to cover up that pain.

Kim Cooper: Absolutely. Absolutely, we have a handful that have succeeded the program, and we have a handful that hasn’t. And a lot of times if they don’t come to terms with what the real problem is, it’ll continue.

Leonard Sipes: Right.

Kim Cooper: Once they come to terms with what the real problem is, then they can sort of get a hold on it.

Leonard Sipes: But coming to terms with the real problem means examining your life for the first time, and that could be one of the most painful episodes in any human being’s life, to go through that level of examination.

Kim Cooper: Absolutely. We have excellent CSOs, which are the parole officers. We have some that get right to the heart of the problem, they don’t take no for an answer, and it’s just push, push, push. And some of the offenders really, really appreciate that-

Leonard Sipes: And some are scared to death by it.

Kim Cooper: Some are scared to death, but we have a lot that are appreciative, and they really excel.

Leonard Sipes: Kim, thank you for being at our microphones today.

Kim Cooper: Thank you very much.

[Audio Ends]

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