Probation officers use straight talk

LYNN – Terry Ward rarely gets a good night’s sleep.”We’re on-call all the time,” he said. “It’s really never ending, and it carries over six, seven days a week.”Ward and his partner, Kelley Montgomery, are two of Lynn District Court’s 15 probation officers, and they have the added responsibility of leading Lynn’s drug court, meaning many of their probationers are people who are at their most vulnerable: addicts undergoing treatment.”I have dreams about them sometimes,” Ward said during an interview in his sunlit office at Lynn District Court. “Figuring out what I can do for them, what program to put them on ? It’s weird.”Many times, the calls are from employees of treatment programs just wanting to be able to tell individuals they spoke to a probation officer.”They want to be able to say, ‘Well, your probation officer said you’re going to jail if you don’t do this,'” Ward said. “Just to keep us on board.”Drug court is an 18-month program put on by the department and Judge James LaMothe, which is designed to keep drug criminals in intensive rehabilitation programs, under penalty of a committed sentence if they don’t comply.Each of the officers interviews a criminal to first determine if that person qualifies for or could be helped by drug court, but ultimately it is the individual’s decision to get help or go to jail.”Their option is really to do it or serve a sentence, but they’re signing off all their treatments to us,” Montgomery said. “I tell my people this: If you’re at my desk, your life is catastrophic. Either you deal with it or you die.”The probation department receives no extra money from the state to pay for drug court, Ward said, but the officers agreed the state should set aside more money for these types of programs designed to combat recidivism, rather than building more prisons.”You’ve got to get them to believe in their recovery, or you’re fighting an uphill battle,” Ward said. “In prison, they’re not getting the treatment they need.”Address checks, warrant executions and home visits are routine, but potentially dangerous tasks undertaken by everyone in the department, but Ward said most if not all officers have enough “street knowledge” to smell a bad situation brewing, but probation officers do regularly team up with Lynn Police when visiting probationers’ homes, having a cruiser sent out to monitor or serve as back-up.”We know if we get a bad vibe, if we think there’s an issue, we don’t do it,” Ward said.Montgomery agreed.”We’re very good in the sense that we knew right away if something is amiss.”But there have been numerous instances of family members or probationers’ parents becoming belligerent.”I’ve gone to a few houses where parents get a little vocal, a little boisterous,” Ward said.Most of the conflicts Montgomery has had with probationers or their loved ones has been at court, she said, including the time a probationer’s girlfriend threatened to “smash her face in.”The woman ended up facing criminal charges of her own.Another woman, the mother of a probationer, blamed Montgomery for her son’s drug use. Montgomery said she’s fine with the confrontations, as long as they happen in the safety of the courthouse.”I’ve definitely yelled at them. Lynn cops have had to step in,” she said. “You never want to let it happen on their turf. If there’s a weapon ? things can start to go south.”But many parents are thankful to the officers, and realize sometimes the only cure for a probationer’s addiction is to lock them up, Montgomery said. Even the mother who accused her of making her son’s addiction worse later apologized.”Some do realize we’re not out to hurt them, that we want to help,” she said. “But sometimes jail is the safest place – they’re not going to be assaulted, they’re not going to use or get beat or do something they never thought they’d do.”Ward estimated he and Montgomery have a caseload of between 65 and 70 probationers each, which means the officers regularly work up to 10 overtime hours a week