USE OF POLICE IN PAROLE RAIDS STIRS PRAISE, BUT ALSO RAISES CONCERNS

NEW YORK -- Late one night in July, police and
parole officers swarmed down on more than 20 parolees in two Brooklyn
housing projects, rousing them from their beds before questioning them
about crimes in the area and forcing them to give urine samples to
test for drugs. Those who tested positive or failed to give samples
were taken to the local precinct house for further
questioning.

The raid was part of a widening city effort to monitor parolees more
closely by having police accompany parole officers on some of their
visits. The effort stems in part from police statistics that show that
convicted criminals tend to go back to lives of crime upon release
from prison. But it also reflects concerns nationwide that the parole
system has often failed to monitor released inmates adequately.

Similar initiatives are being tried around the nation, but the
aggressiveness of the efforts in New York City have alarmed civil
libertarians and even parole officers, who express concerns that
parolees are becoming targets of illegal searches and harassment by
the police.

Further, they say that the police role undermines the main goal of the
parole system: to smooth the way for former convicts to re-enter society.

Police officials and politicians in New York have lauded the city's
parole efforts, saying that it has been so successful that they now
want to bring all of the initiatives under one task force and export
the tactics to other communities around the state.

They say the effort also reflects a larger integration of the parole
system with police operations, as in recent years police computers
have been linked to databases that include parole information, letting
officers quickly tell, for instance, whether someone ticketed for
littering on the subway is also on parole.

Officials say the increased scrutiny of parolees -- and probationers,
under a different program -- is already having a marked effect.

"This is about providing safety in our community," said Katherine
Lapp, Gov. George E. Pataki's director of criminal justice services.
"The bottom line is it's better to have two pairs of eyes watching
people in the community rather than just one."

"We have a lot more to do, but this is a good first couple of steps,"
she added. "The proof is in the pudding; we get results."

According to Ms. Lapp, the tactics have greatly increased the number
of parolees picked up on warrants. Police officials add that random
sweeps have also helped solve many crimes, said Edward Norris, deputy
commissioner of operations for the Police Department.

Norris noted that officers found guns in the homes of two parolees
during a sweep in July, and they used the seizure of the weapons to
coax more information about other crimes from the ex-convicts.

"Because of that leverage, they gave up information about several
murders," he said.

It is unclear how many parolees have been visited during these joint
operations, or how many have been sent back to prison because parole
violations were found, the police said, adding that they are now
attempting to collect data from precincts. There are about 60,000
parolees in the state, roughly two-thirds of them in New York City.

Under the law, police can enter someone's home -- including a
parolee's -- only with a warrant or in emergency circumstances. But
under the conditions of his release from prison, a parolee agrees to
allow a parole officer inside his home whenever the officer wishes.
All parolees must also consent to drug testing by their parole
officers at any time, and must allow the officers to search their
living areas.

Many parole officers say that in teaming up with them, police officers
have, in effect, been given these powers.

"I have no problem with trying to elicit information for the purpose
of solving crime, but I do have a problem with some of the tactics now
being used in this initiative," said Willis Toms, a union leader and
14-year veteran parole officer. "We are not in the Gestapo; we are in
a free society, and some of the constitutional rights we all have are
being violated by the NYPD."

Denyce Duncan Lacy, a spokeswoman for the New York State Public
Employees Federation, which represents parole officers, said that
several officers filed a grievance a few weeks ago challenging one
aspect of the program, which requires officers to administer spot
urine tests of parolees at the behest of police officers. They contend
that the parole officers should not be forced to handle the samples.

Police and parole officials say there have been no legal challenges to
the tactics, which some precincts started using about two years ago.

Similar programs have cropped up across the country, as states have
clamped down on the parole system. In fact, 14 states have done away
with discretionary parole altogether, something still being urged in
New York by Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Advocates of bringing parole and probation officers into closer
cooperation with the police say that initiatives like those now being
used in New York City can forestall more drastic changes to the system
by beefing up the supervision of parolees.

Under the New York City program, parolees who live in high-crime
areas, or who are seen as possible repeat offenders, are singled out
for visits by parole and police officers during special nighttime
operations. Usually, 25 to 30 parolees in one area are sought out each
time, parole officers say.

While parole officers do not normally conduct urine tests on the spot,
they have been instructed to do so using Police Department specimen
containers, according to an internal memorandum put out by the
Division of Parole and obtained by The New York Times by a parole
officer who opposes the policy.

During one operation in July, parole officers were ordered to handcuff
any parolees who refused to take the test, or could not urinate, and
to transport them to the station house, according to a "statement of
fact" circulated internally in one parole office.

The parole officers were also ordered to "attempt to gain permission
from either the subject himself or an adult member of the household to
search the subject's living area."

"Whether or not permission to search was granted, we were ordered to
transport the subject to the local precinct for debriefing by NYPD,"
the statement continued.

Parole officers say such operations have hindered their ability to do
their jobs and led not only parolees, but their families and
neighbors, to see the officers as little more than an extension of the
police force. They say that on several occasions, the police have also
interrogated others in the parolees' homes and conducted illegal searches.

"As parole officers, we can search the immediate area where the
parolee sleeps, but we cannot search his mother's room, his sister's
room, or the living room," Toms said. "The police are coming into
these homes in a very abrupt and violent way and conducting illegal
searches."

Ralph Schwartz, a 19-year veteran parole officer and union official,
added that parole officers in Far Rockaway, Queens, were told to do
their interviews in the local precinct house. And, he said, police in
the Bronx set up shop in vacant parole offices two Thursdays every
month, handing parole officers a list of people they wish to question,
even though the men are not scheduled to visit their parole officers
on that day.

"They are told to come in and then given over to the police for
questioning in a separate room, not for arrest or anything but
interrogation," Schwartz said. "This is what we are seeing a lot more
of, gearing toward regular parolees and using parole officers to get
them started talking about anything and everything the police want.

Ms. Lapp said that she knew of no instances in which peoples' rights
were being violated but that her office would investigate any such
allegations fully. She added that once parole officers are involved in
the program and everyone understands his role, "people work well together."

While some attribute criticism of the tactics to union griping,
lawyers with the New York Civil Liberties Union and other legal
experts say that such visits by police officers raise troubling legal
questions.

"The general rule is that a police officer cannot go into a home
unless they had probable cause to arrest the person, and ordinarily
there needs to be a warrant," said Vivian Berger, a professor at
Columbia Law School, who noted that the initiative appeared to be "an
end-run and an attempt to piggyback on the parole system, which is
unwarranted and may be harmful."

Despite constitutional questions about such police tactics, law
enforcement officials justify the initiatives by citing statistics
that show a high recidivism rate among people conditionally released
from jails and prisons.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one study of more than
100,000 prisoners released conditionally from prison in 1983 found
that 63 percent were rearrested within three years. Patrick Langan, a
senior statistician with the department's Bureau of Justice
Statistics, added that more than one-third of all homicides and
one-fourth of all killings of police officers are committed by people
on probation or parole or out on bail.

Most initiatives linking police with parole and probation officers are
loosely based on one begun in Boston seven years ago called Night
Light. That operation is conducted in conjunction with several other
programs that have paired social service workers and ministers, among
others, with special sections in the Police Department, like the
police anti-gang unit. The program focuses mainly on teen-agers.

Crime experts say that none of the programs have been sufficiently
studied to draw conclusions about their effectiveness. But the Boston
Police Department credits their efforts with helping to squelch gun
violence, saying it may be part of the reason there has been a nearly
70 percent decrease in the number of people 24 and under killed by
guns between 1990 and 1998.

Lt. Detective Gary French, the commander of the Boston Police
Department's youth violence strike force, said that the focus of that
city's effort is on connecting former convicts with their
communities.The Boston program is intended to be nonconfrontational,
is probation and parole led, and was set up only after consultation
with lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, he said.

He added that his officers do not conduct urine tests or do searches
during these home visits.

"If something, like a gun, is in plain view, we get a warrant," he
said. "We don't go on a fishing expedition."

"Sometimes, lights go off when you explain the program to officers,"
he said. "There's this idea of, 'Hey, this is great; we can go in and
snoop around.' But you have to be very careful, because one slam-dunk
court case can shut all of these programs down."