PROBATION OFFICERS' ZEAL SPARKS CONSTITUTIONAL CONCERN

"Protecting You is Our Mission."

That's the official motto of the state Corrections Department.

Its meaning has been sucked to the center of what has become a vortex of
interdepartmental feuding, accusations, disciplinary actions and debate
among judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officials, criminal offenders,
defense lawyers and private citizens.

On its face, it appears to be a continuing struggle between a few probation
and parole officers and administrators bent on stemming what they see as
increasingly dangerous assaults upon constitutional rights.

Of the estimated 300 probation and parole officers in the state, less than
a half-dozen officers, concentrated mainly in a three-county area of
Oklahoma's midsection, are turning up the heat on their bosses over
philosophical differences as to how they should do their jobs.

It has become a struggle over not just job descriptions, but of citizens'
constitutional protections against warrantless searches, home invasions,
improper seizure and destruction of property, even holding innocent people
shackled and at gunpoint, as happened recently in Cleveland County.

Probation and parole officers are allowed by law to conduct unannounced
"visits" at the homes and workplaces of parolees and probationers.

That authority can be abused and transformed into a warrantless search --
forbidden by the Fourth Amendment but granted to probation and parole
officers under Oklahoma law, critics say.

"The local law enforcement down there (chiefly in Garvin and Cleveland
counties) is trying to use probation and parole officers as an 'in' to be
able to go in and do warrantless searches. And that's against our policy,
it's against the law, and it's unconstitutional," said Kris Evans, a senior
probation and parole officer in Duncan.

"We do have a law enforcement component to our job, but we're not supposed
to be out there playing detective. We supervise people on probation or
parole, and that's the scope of our employment," Evans said.

"If you want to go kick in doors, go apply to the OSBI (Oklahoma State
Bureau of Investigation) or a local law enforcement agency."

Parolees and probationers, "have a right to a search warrant just like
everybody else does," said James Harrell, another senior officer in Duncan.

Another longtime probation and parole officer, who asked not to be
identified, said prosecutors and law enforcement agencies have been known
to "get a lead, then call Probation and Parole and say, 'Hey, man, we can't
go in this house; why don't you go out and do a 'home visit' on them?'
Then, they (law enforcement officers) follow them in on their heels.

"They can't go in behind us and do a search. That's an illegal search," the
officer said.

Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie, in a statement to The Oklahoman last
week, decried some officers "acting independently as tactical or SWAT-type
force," of the commandeering and destruction of a woman's vehicle, and of
"arresting citizens and taking them to another county for questioning on
new felony charges to avoid consultation with their (attorneys)."

"Nor do we support officers handcuffing private citizens where offenders
may be living, held at gunpoint while searches are conducted throughout
every room, basement, attic, garage, etc., regardless of whether under the
control or joint control of the offender," Massie said.

It's a long-standing war between administrators and a tiny minority of
officers afraid their employer will take away their guns, an administrator
said.

"These people think that I am out to take their peace officer certification
away, that I'm out to take their guns," said Kathy Waters, the agency's
deputy director for probation, parole and community corrections.

"I'm a certified peace officer," Waters said. "I'm a former probation
officer -- that's how I started. There has never even been any discussion
to take their certification away or to take their guns away," she said.

District Attorney Tim Kuykendall of Norman last week decried what he called
a philosophical shift by probation and parole administrators. He said
they've changed from hard-confrontational law enforcement that makes
arrests for new crimes to a stronger emphasis on social work in dealing
with those convicted of crimes.

"We don't need the 'John Wayne-cowboy' probation officers out there, just
looking for reasons to arrest people," Kuykendall said. "That's not any
more appropriate than to have just 'social workers,' who always look the
other way and don't report to the courts and DAs when someone violates
probation.

"You have to have a medium, in-between, somewhere."

Kuykendall's comments followed a blistering public attack by Garvin County
Sheriff Bob Davis on Corrections Director Bob Saffle and his department's
oversight of its probation and parole officers.

The sheriff, Kuykendall and other critics say the corrections department
takes too soft a stance in the way it handles its law- enforcement duties.
Kuykendall said he backs some officers' preference that their duties be
transferred to the Public Safety Department.

Others disagree.

Some probation and parole officers "think our job is to take names and kick
a--. That is not our job," said one officer who asked not to be named.

Kuykendall cited a December incident in which two Norman-based probation
and parole officers were allegedly ordered by their supervisor to make no
arrests at a Norman residence even though marijuana was visible on a table.
One of the occupants, when asked if there were any drugs in the house,
reached into his pocket and handed one of the officers a bag of the drug.

Probation and parole officers Ray Aldridge and Terry Raynor also were
instructed not to contact Norman police but to take the drugs and leave,
the prosecutor said.

Both officers have been subject to prior discipline by the corrections
department and have been actively campaigning against department policy.

"There's been an ongoing battle between probation and parole and their
department of corrections for as long as I can remember," Kuykendall said.

"The current problem has to do with an unwritten policy that they cannot
arrest people that commit crimes unless that person is under the direct
supervision of the department of corrections.

"It boils down to a philosophy of what a probation officer is supposed to do.

"I think the general attitude at the department of corrections is, we'd
rather have a social-worker probation officer. We've got too many people in
prison now; we don't want our own people sending us more," he said.

Waters disagrees.

"Who wouldn't want an additional 10 or 15 officers out there, with no
restrictions on what they can do?" she asked.

"Our job is to supervise people under probation and parole orders. That is
our authority. They have peace officer powers. They have all of those
powers to supervise and do all the things they need to do with the people
they have under supervision -- period.

"We have a job to do, and that's supervising people under our jurisdiction.
We are not out there to investigate new crimes. That's not what we're
about," she said.

Massie said statistics show that the state's probation officers are doing
their jobs despite the internal grousing by a few.

In fiscal 1998, nearly 2,000 of the state's 29,000 probationers were sent
back to prison for violations, he said.

A decade earlier, only 391 were sent back out of about 22,000 convicts on
probation.

Misuse of the department's "home visit" rights could jeopardize those
rights over time, Waters said.

"Part of our job is law enforcement, and part is social work," a probation
officer said. "These few guys want to be 120 percent law enforcement and
they don't want to do any of the social-work part of it.

"I agree we need to protect society and protect the public -- I've always
been one of those officers that believes in that.

"But if we also don't help individuals who are trying to help themselves,
we're hurting them," he said.