COLUMN ONE : Probation’s Punishing Way of Life : An overflow from the justice system swamps overtaxed officials and underfinanced agencies while more offenders are cut off from resources that could make a difference.

NEW YORK — It could be the emergency room of any large metropolitan hospital. People slump in hard chairs, dozing. Mothers with restless toddlers in strollers wait. Teen-agers pace, unable to stand still.

One by one, in a relentless stream, they are called to a hole cut in the middle of a thick, bulletproof glass window plastered with signs warning against AIDS, drugs and alcohol. Sometimes complaining, other times pleading to be heard because they are double-parked outside, these criminals announce their presence.

Five days a week, the probation receiving room on the fifth floor of the Bronx Criminal Court is packed with offenders. Rapists sit shoulder-to-shoulder with wife beaters, burglars and muggers with drug dealers. Check-kiters, shoplifters, petty thieves, armed robbers, arsonists, loan sharks, pimps, fences, extortionists, forgers, bribers, credit card scammers, bunco artists, car thieves and violent felons form a wall-to-wall tableau of crime.

On her day to hold office hours, probation officer Annette Garland walked into the waiting room, searching for her next case. It was 9:45 a.m., but already it was her fourth appointment. She had 24 interviews scheduled.

Across the nation, probation is the vast underside of the criminal justice system. Forced to supervise ever growing numbers of felons, starved for resources, often buffeted by low morale and the image of probation as a mere slap on the wrist, probation departments are struggling to cope with a population of offenders that has grown 126% in the last decade--from 1.1 million to more than 2.67 million adults, or about double the number in prisons.

“You talk about overcrowding in prisons, the most overcrowded part of the system is probation,” said Alan M. Schuman, a court official who serves as chief probation officer for the District of Columbia. “We are responsible for three-fourths of all offenders.”

Probation is often confused with parole. Convicts are paroled from prison before their sentences end, on the promise of future good behavior. Probation is an alternative to a jail or prison. After being convicted of a crime, a person might be sentenced to probation, and a judge sometimes will impose conditions such as a fine, community service or a curfew.

The aim of probation, which began in the United States in the 19th Century, is both to rehabilitate and to control offenders. But today, under the pressure of vast numbers of criminals, these goals often aren’t met.

In some cities, the figures are staggering: Approximately 111,000 people are on probation in Los Angeles, where a single officer can at times have 1,000 cases; approximately 63,000 are under supervision in New York, where Mayor David N. Dinkins has announced major changes to try to meet the crisis.

In most big cities, triage reigns. Overworked probation officers are forced to focus on the highest-risk cases--the offenders most likely to commit new crimes--and ignore other criminals who often badly need help.

For some people “there is essentially no supervision going on,” said Dale Parent, senior analyst at ABT Associates, a criminal justice consulting and research firm based in Cambridge, Mass.

Because of prison overcrowding, more felons are sentenced to probation. In many large cities, the number of people sentenced to probation after being convicted of burglaries, rapes, weapons offenses and other serious crimes has soared.

In New York, 77% of probationers are felons, and fully a third of active cases are people who have been found guilty of violent crimes. Nationally, 43% of offenders violate the terms of their probation.

Swamped by such huge caseloads, many urban probation departments are forced to make cursory referrals to educational and job training programs. Often, connections can’t be made in the crush. And even when there are referrals, some offenders find that they can’t get into vocational training because of their criminal history.

Studies in New York City show probationers are twice as likely to be arrested for a new crime if they lack both vocational and educational skills.

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One day recently, Garland, 37, and her partner, probation officer Gwendelin Peters, 51, drove through the South Bronx, checking on clients at home. For Garland, who grew up in the South Bronx, these were familiar streets. Peters came to New York from Roxbury, Mass.

Both probation officers try to schedule their visits early in the morning--before drug dealers wake up and congregate in front of buildings.

About a year ago, Peters said, she checked her caseload to determine how many had completed high school. Only five of the 140 were graduates. More than half were illiterate--both in English and in Spanish.

Garland said it is hard advising teen-agers when there are virtually no jobs and when after-school programs have been cut to the bone.

“Sometimes it is very difficult to try to tell your probationers they should be doing something different with their lives when they look around and there is no one doing anything,” Garland said. “Most of them will not work for McDonald’s, Burger King or any of those fast-food restaurants (where they would make) only $5.50 an hour. They want to make 10 and 12 dollars.

“They feel as though they won’t get the respect from their friends if they work at McDonald’s. I tell them to go to another borough. You don’t have to work in the Bronx. You can work in Brooklyn. Nobody will know.”

Open the files of most big city probation departments and cases emerge showing the serious problems facing officers.

In New York, a woman who was out on probation after pleading guilty to the felony sale of narcotics fatally stabbed an 81-year-old neighbor. Officials say the case drives home the need to better identify--and supervise--probationers who have the potential to be involved in violent crime.

Adelaide Alvarez had been sentenced to five years of probation after her narcotics conviction. Alvarez, who also has a record of several misdemeanor arrests in Florida, began to report to her probation officer twice a month.

But less than two months after the supervision began, she killed her neighbor, a woman well-known as a Good Samaritan in their public housing complex on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Alvarez, who later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 11 1/2 to 23 years in state prison, told detectives she was angry at “some remarks” the older woman had made previously.

The current reorganization of New York City’s Probation Department is designed to identify potentially violent criminals such as Alvarez and give them special attention.

“This case illustrates the reason we are building a system to identify early on the people who have the most potential to be violent and work with them intensively . . . so that tragedies like this can be averted,” said Michael P. Jacobson, New York City’s probation commissioner.

“Obviously, we can’t have a 100% success rate, but we are trying to greatly improve the odds to avert cases like this.”

In Los Angeles, where 3,300 probation deputies struggle to supervise 90,000 convicted adults and more than 21,000 juveniles, it’s easy for young criminals to fall back into old patterns in their neighborhoods.

One such youth was Thomas, 16. A gang member, he had a record of multiple arrests for auto theft, burglary and robbery. He had twice spent time at juvenile camps. Each time, he was a model probationer, persuading staff members that he was willing to turn his life around.

But within a month of his latest release, he was arrested for car theft again. After failing to report to his probation officer, a bench warrant was issued and Thomas faces the strong possibility of being sent to the California Youth Authority, the equivalent of state prison for juveniles.

Overwhelmed by the number of cases they face, probation officers work daily to persuade their clients to improve their behavior.

One of the women Garland saw in her office during her long day of interviews was Veronica, a soft-eyed, overweight 22-year-old. She had been arrested at an airport for trying to carry two pounds of marijuana into the United States from Jamaica.

As Veronica sat beneath a serene-looking picture of the lone cypress tree on the Monterey Peninsula, Garland asked tough questions.

Garland inquired if Veronica had found a job or was studying for her high school equivalency diploma. Garland reported that Veronica’s last urine test for drugs was negative, checked whether she lived at the same address and asked if she had been arrested since their previous appointment.

“I just can’t find a job,” Veronica complained.

“Why aren’t we going back to school to get your GED?” Garland lectured after Veronica admitted she flunked her high school equivalency test. “Weren’t you studying? Just because you get knocked down doesn’t mean you lay there and die.

“You get up and try again. . . . Your life is like passing you by. There are like a million GED programs all over the city. Why don’t we say when you come back in two weeks, you will have called and made an appointment to get this ball rolling.”

Garland ended the meeting, which lasted about 15 minutes. Veronica looked glad to leave.

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The roots of probation in America reach to 1841, when John Augustus, a kindhearted shoemaker, visited Boston’s criminal court. As a judge was about to send a drunk off to jail, Augustus intervened and offered to look after the man. Three weeks later, the shoemaker returned to court with his charge. The man was sober and contrite.

The court soon gave Augustus other cases, and by 1878, Boston had instituted the nation’s first full-fledged probation system for adults.

Today, as part of an effort to rehabilitate offenders, probation officers not only interview people on probation but also may visit a criminal’s school, workplace or home.

Probation officers also perform pre-sentence investigations for courts. To help judges determine the degree of punishment, probation officers may question criminals in jail and speak to family members, employers, friends and teachers. Crime victims, district attorneys and other law enforcement officers may be interviewed to compile a report.

Last year in New York City, probation officers completed an average of 30 pre-sentence investigations a month in addition to supervising criminals.

Some probation officers testify in court during hearings to determine whether an offender who violates probation should be sent to jail. Others collect restitution--money to be repaid to victims of crimes. For example, a robber may be ordered as part of probation to pay back the money he stole from a shopkeeper.

Still other armed probation officers hunt down and arrest serious probation violators. But when resources increasingly are devoted to arresting people who ignore rules of probation, the process contributes to prison overcrowding--which probation is designed to alleviate.

All of these tasks are accompanied by mountains of paperwork.

Some probation agencies attempt to provide drug treatment themselves but lack the time and resources for necessary intensive counseling. Others sign contracts with outside vendors, but in some cities, not enough slots are available in drug treatment programs and probationers often receive low priority.

Indigent probationers are sometimes just put on waiting lists for drug treatment with the caveat that they find enough money to pay for the service.

Probation’s huge caseloads are the result of packed prisons. The United States has the highest incarceration rate of the world’s industrialized nations, with 426 people per 100,000 behind bars. South Africa is second with 333 per 100,000.

Current estimates are that more than 1 million inmates are housed in state and federal penitentiaries and local jails.

At least 40 states are under court orders to cut prison populations, and many judges view probation as a cheaper alternative to jails. In New York City, it costs $59,130 a year to keep an inmate in jail. Probation costs far less--between $4,000 and $6,000--even under intensive supervision.

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Struggling with the crush, many probation departments complain that they get no respect.

“Among policy-makers, legislative branches and appropriations committees, probation clearly is an orphan,” said Frank Hartman, executive director of Harvard University’s criminal justice program. “It is a system constructed to screw up in the sense that probation officers by and large don’t have the capacity to give adequate supervision.”

Despite the fact that it is the fastest growing sanction, probation departments chronically finish last in the arm-wrestling for funding.

Unlike law enforcement agencies, which have highly effective lobbies in state capitals, probation officials have little political clout.

“Probation is generally smaller than police and corrections,” said Todd R. Clear, a Rutgers University criminal justice professor and vice president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. “If the probation agency is housed within the judiciary, judges tend to lobby for court priorities first and probation second. If it is housed within a corrections agency, 90% (of the lobbying) is for prisons.”

According to the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, probation departments receive less than 10% of state and local government expenditures for correctional services, which includes prisons and rehabilitation programs behind bars. And their budgets are declining when compared to other criminal justice components.

Probation commissioners are struggling to devise systems to classify criminals. The goal is to develop a spectrum of punishments, ranging from sanctions such as court-imposed fines for relatively minor offenses to intensive supervision of people with the greatest potential for committing new crimes. But risk assessment, though improving, remains an inexact science, designers of the sorting systems say.

In an effort to improve controls, probation commissioners are experimenting with a host of sanctions, including boot camps (short-term incarceration modeled after military basic training), house arrest with electronic monitoring, and special reporting centers where violators on the verge of being sent to prison can spend days under intensive supervision--even seminars teaching criminals social values.

“Throughout the field, you are seeing renewed interest in rehabilitation,” said M. Kay Harris, an associate professor of criminal justice at Temple University. “There is greater receptivity toward saying we need to try new responses. Nobody can supervise 250 people on an effective basis.”

With these odds, success is often measured by small victories. As they saw clients, Garland and Peters spoke with pride of the few probationers who had passed the high school equivalency test, and the fewer still who had gone on to college.

“Every so often, your client says: ‘Thank you,’ and that makes a difference even if you only get one thanks a month,” Peters said. “I just tell them that by not getting arrested, that’s thanks enough.”

Next: Probation overload in Los Angeles.

New York’s New Approach

In what planners say is a revolutionary experiment, New York city is abandoning many of the traditional models of probation to concentrate most of its resources on potentially violent offenders. The strategy departs radically from classifying and managing criminals on a sliding scale of supervision based on the likelihood they will commit new crimes.

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The Problem

Projected budget cuts are forcing a new look at probation. If estimates hold, New York’s probation department could lose up to 40% of its adult supervision staff by the 1996 fiscal year. The result: Caseloads now averaging 160 could swell to 300 per officer. Faced with such a grim picture, New York’s strategy to a large degree has become triage--a word probation officials refrain from using. Beginning next July, caseloads will become smaller, but tougher. Probation officers may see the same criminal perhaps three times a week.

* N.Y. probationers who are felons: 77%

* N.Y. Probationers found guilty of violent crimes: 33%

* Annual cost per probationer in intensive supervision: $4,000 to $6,000

* Annual cost of incarcerating a N.Y. inmate: $59,130

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The New Way

1. Testing: Experts are working to create tests to try to predict violent behavior. For purposes of funding, planners estimate 40% of probationers have been involved in violent crimes.

2. Specialized treatment: If a criminal is classified as potentially violent, psychiatric, educational and other assesments will follow. After the process is completed, these probationers will be assigned to either a supervision of specialized treatment, which will stress such subjects as avoiding narcotics, gaining everyday living skills and access to mental health services.

3. Graduated sanctions: Supervision will feature systems of graduated sanctions, including such deterrents as home detention and visits by probation officers. Potentially violent criminals may be placed under curfews or required to spend days at special centers that will offer a variety of rehabilitative strategies.

4. Nonviolent probationers: Under the new system, nonviolent criminals will communicate with probation officers through computers set up in adult supervision offices throughout the city. Probationers will fill out a monthly questionnaire on a screen and request to see a supervisor if they desire. If the probation officer wants to see the client, a message will flash on the screen. If a warrant is outstanding, the computer would be programmed to ask questions in order to stall the criminal until armed probation officers arrive to make an arrest.

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What Officials Say

“If it works, it will fundamentally change the nature of probation in America. If it doesn’t work, we will have learned more about the nature of successful probation practice than ever has been learned before.”

--Michael P. Jacobson, New York City’s probation commissioner

“What we are going to be doing is . . . completely redefining what risk is and redefine what our mission is in terms of public safety. The public is concerned about crimes of violence against other human beings, and we have defined low risk as nonviolent crimes.”

--Frank Domurad, the department’s deputy commissioner for administration and planning

Who Gets Probation?

Here’s a breakdown of types of sentences imposed, by conviction:

Prison Pro- or jail bation Homicide 92% 8% Rape 66 34 Robbery 69 31 Aggravated Assault 47 52 Burglary 60 39 Drug Trafficking 53 47 Larceny 47 52 Drug possession 45 54 Other felonies 42 56 TOTAL 52 48

Some categories do not add up to 100% because a category of “others” is not listed.

Source: Information provided to the American Probation and Parole Assn.

Figures have been weighted to reflect inner city probation departments.