Life on parole

Parole and probation officers manage many roles in quest to maintain justice

By Erica Ryberg

The South County Spotlight, Oct 14, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Erica Ryberg / The South County Spotlight

YOUNG GUN — Despite his youthful 26 years of age, Columbia County Parole and Probation Officer Cole Kieling is a source of guidance and direction for domestic violence offenders under community corrections supervision.

Cole Kieling has a lot of voice mails. The probation officer’s partner, Josh Snyder, mills around Kieling’s office door waiting for him to plow through the messages so they can head out to make home visits. It’s taking a while.

While he waits, Snyder explains that the two of them – as well as the other half-dozen or so probation officers in the Columbia County Community Corrections office – are change agents. They work to get the light bulb to click on in the minds of their charges – people who have had run-ins with the law and who have been given probation or parole as part of their sentencing.

“Sometimes it takes a long time,” he says. “Speaking of a long time...”

He looks over to Kieling, who’s still taking forever to get out into the field.

But the rangy probation officer’s caseload is mostly people with domestic violence charges. He not only has to stay in contact with them, he also must stay in contact with their victims. It makes for a lot of phone calls.

For those who haven’t been in trouble, their notion of what a probation officer does is often vague. They’ve heard the words, says Walt Pesterfield, who directs the county’s community corrections department, but often don’t know exactly what they mean.

And, well, being a probation officer can mean a lot of things. It can mean making sure offenders – whom the staff calls “clients” – take the psycho-pharmaceuticals that help them function, or stay off the illegal ones that impede their function. It can also mean helping them access the services they need to repair their minds, their bodies or their lives.

And it can mean giving sanctions to those who violate the terms of their probation. Those sanctions can be documented warnings or a stint on work crew, which is a self-supporting program resembling community service, or it can be jail.

Kieling finally finishes and straps on a bulletproof vest. He grabs a fistful of toast and jumps in the passenger side of a white county jeep.

Synder’s driving. The two men fill up the front of the county vehicle. It’s not the cage car, which alarms everyone on the road, but the men say the jeep’s still instantly recognizable to the element of Columbia County society familiar with community corrections.

Field work

It’s a Thursday, which means a drive into north county.

Their first stop is to a private home to do a prison-release investigation. The mission is to ensure the residence will be a suitable place to live for a man who will be on Snyder’s caseload. The inspection and approval process – the process of approving habitat – lends an air of jail-in-the-community to the service Snyder and Kieling provide.

When they arrive, they’re met at the door by a woman in her 40s.

I’m supposed to be in school, she tells them.

They know that. They know she’s taking the day off to be there while they inspect her home so her husband can return to it.

Kieling begins explaining the process of supervision to her. No guns, no knives, no alcohol, he tells her.

“I’m a felon,” she says. “I know the deal.”

He’s friendly and inquisitive, anxious, he says later, to build a 15-minute rapport with her.

But she’s building it, too. The men say she wants them to see that she’s hard-working, too engaged in life and work to get into trouble, that she’s willing to throw her husband out if he doesn’t do the same.

Snyder stays quiet and lets Kieling do the talking. This is deliberate. Snyder says that Kieling is the better talker. Meanwhile, Snyder takes the true measure of the house, deciding if it’s a place that his client can come home to.

The mobile home is humble but clean. There’s a collection of ceramic miniatures and a framed marriage certificate on the wall.

Of the two, Snyder, 24, is the more hard-nosed PO. His jokes are a little more cynical, his approach to his job a little more policeman-like. He is the less friendly cop to Kielings’s good guy. He is the brooder to Cole’s open-hearted talker.

As a group, Columbia County POs are diverse. One is black. Three are women. One has done this job for 42 years. Snyder could lose a few pounds and Kieling, who looks like he could easily have a successful second career as a Chippendale model, wears a bracelet that says ‘I love Jesus’.

They are all resourceful advocates for their clients and active defenders of the community and, in the end, law enforcement professionals.

“In the state of Oregon,” Snyder says. “We are police officers when it comes to our clients.”

Unlike regular police officers, they have little contact with the law-abiding public. But their clients pose them little danger.

“We have a rapport with the offenders for the most part,” Kieling said.

Kieling asks the woman about her relationship with her husband and she opens up to him. The 26-year-old says it felt uncomfortable at first to ask people questions about their personal life.

“A lot of times, they appreciate that they have someone to talk to,” he said. “They like that relationship.”

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