Over the past several months, there have been a few troubling issues and incidents in the Commonwealth Probation Department and the Commonwealth Parole Board.
Several high ranking members of the Probation Department have resigned following a Boston Globe Spotlight report and the follow-on report. Issues of patronage and nepotism were alleged.
Member of the Parole Board resigned after a career criminal, having been sentenced to multiple LIFE sentences was released and later gunned down a Woburn Police officer following a jewelry heist.
Clearly, both of these agencies play a vital role in public safety and the public should be able to rely on the ethical conduct of members.
What are your thoughts of the matters? What can be done to restore faith in the organizations?
Please weigh in with thoughts and ideas to improve the system.
SAM
In reference to the actions of probation commissioner, John O'Brien, and his alleged actions of taking part in patronage jobs, etc...What really gets me is that he is suspended WITH pay. I do not believe this is right at all. For someone who controls and represents the commonwealth, it is like a slap in the face to the people who trust them. For what he is supposed to stand for a represent, it is a disgrace, and just adds to the resentment and lack of trust certain majorities have in our government. The fact that it took a newspaper agency to figure all of this out, or at least point it out to the people, is another issue. Sure, the amendment of freedom of the press is being uphelp, but that is not the issue here... It shouldn't have to come down to that. There should be more transparency in the structure of office. As I read in the AFCE fraud report for 2010, their needs to be more surveillence. The report said that it was more difficult for smaller companies/organizations to survey and watch over their companies and employees, mainly due to lack of resources, but this is a governmental branch we are talking about here. They should be held at the utmost pinnacle of able structure, organization and to be able to run with ease. These people should be setting the examples. It is obvious there is always going to be some form of fraud or corruption in the world, however, there needs to be more screening and surveillence if this is going to be fixed. More "checks and balances"need to be initiated. I'm not saying their needs to be more "higher up" positions to watch over these people, maybe they do, but their needs to be that transparency in their job positions and actions, so that we can be assured that people are playing fair and following the rules. By hiring employees who fit his political agenda, O'Brien had/has, in a sense, weakend the system because by hiring by this particular agenda, you lose the variety and skills that would otherwise come with an agency who hired people of various views; these politically alligned employees thus become or are more narrow-minded, than an agency that failry hired and screened all of their emplolyees. The fact that the agency is taking swift action provides a small amount of relief, but now all I'm thinking of is, if corruption is happening here, maybe it's time we did a FULL review of every legislative branch, regardless if tid bits of bad information are surfacing.
ReplyDeleteYou know Alyssa,
ReplyDeleteAs you commented I began to wonder why police agencies, probation and parole agencies are not intermittently reviewed by an outside party.
In larger agencies there are taff inspection units that conduct compliance and policy reviews. In DEA and the FBI every office is inspected every two years by staff inspection.
This is similar to cyclical audits conducted in hospitals and banks.
This could be something to discuss in class. Who would be tasked with the audit function?
Dr. Steve
Hello Everyone!
ReplyDeleteThree things:
1) Suspension with pay is fairly common at the onset of these types of investigations - I don't think it is much of a reason to feel offended. Until some facts can be brought about by the investigating authority to show that there were wrongs committed by the accused it would be premature to remove somebody from their source of income. It’s important take a step back when first hearing sensational stories from any source to give ourselves the room required to question the veracity of the information being presented. I can say from personal experiences that the facts of a case are not always accurately represented by news media.
2) Political patronage in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' probation department is nothing new. In fact, it is pervasive throughout the court system - Judge's are appointed by the Governor and then the Judge is able to appoint his/her own assistant. The Court Clerk is appointed and they too are able to appoint those below him/her fulfill the positions in the Clerk's Office (hundreds if not thousands of jobs across MA). The process by which these positions are filled is all matter of public knowledge. If you go to http://appointments.state.ma.us/ you can submit your resume to be considered for one of over 700 boards the governor has the ability to appoint people to.
3) In a perfect world, I don't think that people who donate $1,000 to a state senator or governor should stand to be higher on the list of potential candidates than the person who didn't donate, but there is another way of looking at this. People who donate $1,000 dollars are not likely betting that the donation will land them a nice job for the rest of their lives, the donation probably has more to do with their belief in a certain politian’s policy and/or stance on an issue. It does not surprise or shock me that a politician would seek to insert an individual with a similar set of beliefs into one of the state's most powerful entities. Actually, given that those people who are getting the individuals into these jobs are elected, or appointed by those elected, it is a distinct possibility that the belief system of those being given these jobs are in line with the majority of the electorate.
Rick Rice
I was surprised when I heard this story. How can someone that should have served multiple life sentences be released? What also surprised me was that all of the six members of the parole board thought that releasing this individual was a good idea. While I do believe that rehab can be a option that works for some, it doesn't always. I don't understand why no one voted against it. Out of the six members, at least one must have thought that it might have been a bad idea. However I don't think the parole board are to blame for the death of the Woburn police officer. The individual chose to commit another crime. I think there should be some kind of criteria for those who are eligible for parole. A stronger and more solid system needs to be established in order to determine who can be paroled. I believe a lot of people have lost their faith in the parole system. How can you trust a system that has already failed once? It also makes you think what other criminals have been paroled that shouldn’t have been.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading about the Commonweath Probation and Parole Board, I would have to say that I agree with Alyssa entirely on the issue of auditing these boards. I do not understand how our Commonwealth could have been so irresponsible as to mistreat their duties and occupations this way! They are supposed to be the persons in which we can trust to keep the truly violent offenders off of the streets, yet they cannot be trusted to even screen their own employees correctly. My dream is to become an attorney, an occupation already holding a "Do Not Trust" sign above it's head, and I had hoped to somehow find the time to work in Probation first along the way. What is happening the system in which we are supposed to trust to bring justice to the offenders who have wronged our victims and keep safety among those of us who wish to stay that way?
ReplyDeleteI do, however, agree with Rick Rice when he says that it would be too presumptuous to suspend anyone without pay before they had been properly tried and convicted of any crime. As the saying goes, "innocent until proven guilty." All members who have been suspended will will not receive pay if they are found guilty of the crime they are tried for regaredless, so until that happens, we live in a country where they do obtain the right to be paid for the services they HAVE given.
I recently just finished a Crime and the Media course and I learned an INCREDIBLE amount. The media has many ways of distorting criminal knowledge to make it appealing and enticing to the public, when most records and information are not actually open to the public. So, as much as we believe we know about this tragedy and criminal scandal, we most likely do not. I am interested, most of all, to see the outcome of these trials in the future.
After reading the Commonwelath Probabtion and Parole Board article I am appalled to know that we could allow such a violent criminal to walk the streets again not only that but now an innocent officer is dead. There needs to be better standards for the parole board and also outside parties looking at these agencies so this does not occur in the future. I am not sure how the community can overcome the tragedy that happened and learn to trust these agencies again. The first steps have begun and hopefully we can once again regain trust that this will never happen again.
ReplyDeleteLast semester I took a class from Professor Matthew Palumbo at Worcester State called Probation, Parole, and Community Corrections. Not surprisingly, we had several conversations about this current state of the Massachusetts Probation Department and their commissioner, John O’Brien. At this point there has been an independent investigation and they found that there in fact was abuse and corruption of the hiring and promotion processes.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I’m a little jaded, but, I’ve assumed for years that a large amount of state agencies are lousy with greed and corruption. I wish it weren’t the case and I think it’s astoundingly sad. I have a great deal of respect for the ideas behind government and the way it meant to manage agencies that serve the community. In a perfect world the folks who work for those entities have very noble intentions and are also in place due their respect for government. When an investigation like the one we have on hand reveals the underbelly of state agency corruption, citizens seemed shocked. Most people I know think the government’s corrupt everyday, but until it comes to the surface, no one needs to address it, it doesn’t have a face.
Now, at least corruption has a face- a few faces in fact. In having learned a fair amount about a career as a probation officer, if I’m honest I’d say I became interested. But, needless to say, I would be waiting a bit before I email in my resume.
“Dominic Cinelli, two decades ago was convicted of stealing $86,000 worth of jewels in a downtown Boston store and shooting a security guard in the chest during a scuffle. As a teenager, Cinelli stabbed a man in the chest, police said. Both victims survived. In 1986, he pleaded guilty to five ARMED robberies committed after he failed to return from a one-day furlough from the Worcester House of Correction. According to a 2008 Parole Board decision, Cinelli was serving three concurrent life sentences. The Parole Board released him in March 2009, saying the lifelong drug and alcohol abuser had completed several prison treatment programs for substance abuse and alternatives to violence and earned his GED.”
There’s not a lot to say about the possible preventableness of the tragic death of Officer Maguire. Fair to say an individual with Cinellu’s predilection toward violence was perhaps not simply tied to drug and alcohol use. So, completion of programming, albeit admirable, doesn’t necessarily remove the tendencies. But, if every release is second guessed, there may be those who deserve to be released that are not.
After reading the comments above I would have to agree that the public expectations of the probation and parole department are currently being discredited by the problems going on throughout society. Although this is true the amount of cases that are flowing through each stage of the criminal justice system may be the reason for this negligence.
ReplyDeleteToday the United States has the highest amount incarcerated people which may in turn be causing the deviation from normal standards of conduct. Although the people are expecting all professional processes of probation and parole to be used during each and every case, is it really possible with the overflowing amount of criminal cases in America?
With this argument anyone can see the struggles being faced today, but according to the Bureau of Justice Statics the population of people under community supervision or on probation has declined in 2009, bringing up the question: how many criminals are being improperly released from custody and sent into the public with intentions of committing more crimes?