Most of us have broken or at least “mildly sprained” a law at some point in our lives. Nobody’s perfect – sorry, Mom. But after hearing some of the astoundingly stupid things some offenders have been caught doing, I’m starting to think I’m not all that terrible of a person after all.
Below Probation Officers share true tales of lawbreakers with their hand caught in the cookie jar, so to speak…
Had a client sentenced for transportation fraud, skipped out on cab fare. Guess how she got to her 1st appointment with me? Yep, took a cab to my office and skipped out on the fare.
I’m a case manager for offenders placed on probation to help get their shit together.
Not my client but I know one who narrowly passed his diversion program instead of going to prison, only to go to the probation lobby and a watch a rap video of himself. Waving pistols around. With a sheriff behind him watching it.
He was violated and sent to complete his prison sentence.
A friend of mine was a probation officer we were out at a bar one night after a softball game and she abruptly said “I need money for 2 shots, I’ll tell you why in a minute. ”
Confused but intrigued I gave her some cash and watched as she went to the bar and ordered 2 shots. She went up to a guy I didn’t know and was quite a bit older than our friend circle was. She handed him 1 of the shots, did the cheers salute and took her shot. She said “see you at my office tomorrow” and came back to our table.
He just stood there staring at us for a few seconds, took his shot, and left.
She fills me in that the man was on probation and had a scheduled appointment with her the next morning. She was pretty confident that he would be going to jail for being caught in the bar, so she figured she would buy him his last drink.
Had a kid on probation for your basic teenage offenses (underage drinking, minor vandalism, shoplifting); kid had a rough upbringing and almost no role models so the judge took it easy on him and he got sentenced to community service rather than Big Boy Jail. Didn’t show up. The kid just didn’t go because, according to him, he wasn’t about to be seen picking up trash like some lowclass “insert whatever racial slur kid could think of. ” Well, guess who got to go to Big Boy Jail.
Not a PO, just a girl who got caught smoking pot in her dorm room and had to go to court.
At my court hearing, another dude was there because he allegedly got drunk one night and shot a bullet through the wall of his apartment complex. Apparently, the cops confiscated a bunch of guns from this dude’s apartment (not sure if they were legal or not). From how it sounded, this kid probably shouldn’t have possessed any firearms. While he was at the stand, he asked the judge if he could have the guns returned because he still had a few and since they were part of a collection, he wanted them all together.
Complete silence in the courtroom. I watched the lawyer’s shoulders tense up.
The judge was not impressed. She let him have it for still having guns when he should’ve given all of them up that night. She told him he needed to turn in the rest of the guns or he’d be violating probation and would go to jail. He probably kicked himself so hard after that.
Was an RA in at Pre-release center a summer while in college. Only time I had to read legal stuff and send someone back to prison was a guy that had used all of his food stamps that was supposed to go to his wife and kid on a bunch of candy. And illegal candy (only certain types were allowed in the center, but I really don’t remember what/why). So a thirty-something YO man was crying that he was going back to prison over some candy.
An old roommate of mine was on probation for drunk driving and he calls me one day to ask if I can take his dog out for a walk because he won’t be home. He rear-ended a cop in a parking lot with an open beer in the car.
He got an ankle bracelet and I got a new apartment. I’m not living with someone that stupid.
Sorry…not a probation officer BUT I have a story about my old friend who was on probation and on the way to meet his probation officer for a meeting and drug screen. I think he was on probation for writing some bad checks. Anyway, as he’s a stoner, he forgets to allow enough time for his bag of purchased “clean” pee to sit next to his body to heat to the right temperature. Genius decides to swing by a gas station on his way to meet his officer and throw the piss bag in the microwave.
Welp, somehow he lost track of time with this as well and ended up exploding his pee bag in the microwave. Knowing he had no solutions to his now mulitple problems, he went back home and partied. He didnt even clean out the microwave. Turned himself in when the warrant was issued and went to jail for 30ish days.
The amount of clients who don’t realize their social media pages are public is insane. I had several clients post pictures of themselves smoking pot or drinking or being places they shouldn’t be. Guess who’d get drug tested the next day? I also had a client post pictures of herself with her baby-daddy, who just so happened to be a wanted felon for the past four years. Cue nice big investigation where everyone ended up in jail.
I had a teenager who was on community corrections get water from the water fountain and put it in the urine cup…water was super cold. Kid was an idiot.
My former boss was a probation officer. He once told us about an 18-year-old on probation for drug use that lived out in the country. He went one night to check on him. He was greeted at the door by the teen’s father holding a shotgun as he had assumed my boss was an intruder. After explaining to the father why he was there it turned out that the teen had never told his parents about his arrest or drug use. The man called his son into the doorway and proceeded to beat the hell out of him for lying and forced him to apologize to his probation officer.
My dad is a PO when giving a drug test to a “client” the results came back and my dad ask the client if he had anything to tell him. The client then admits he stole his neighbor’s Xbox.
Also, they think if they unplug the ankle monitor receiver no one will notice.
Kid ended up on probation for petty drug case. Picked up DUI while on supervision. Got 2nd dui the night after the first. Fast forward some months and he’s on probation for all 3 offenses. Brings in a wizzinator and gets caught…this is a felony in IL…ya I know it’s fucked up. Anyway he takes a plea on the new felony and the violations on the previous 3 cases and goes to prison for a year or two. And the worst thing he was the loudest talker I’ve ever met. Probably trying to deflect attention from the fake dick in his pants every time he came in.
Juvenile state probation officer checking in. I had a child on a trial home visit attempt a drive-by with a stolen handgun. Needless to say, that trial home visit didn’t last.
Not me, but my dad’s friend. He had a guy coming into the courthouse for whatever reason. When asked if he would remove whatever was in his pockets and pass through security he pulled a crack pipe out and placed it on the conveyer belt…
Former PO… We had to stand in the bathroom and watch as the offenders provided a urine sample. One time, a black male decided to use a “whizzinator” (plastic penis with a tube attached to a plastic bag full of “clean” urine). He didn’t think that officers would be in the bathroom watching him and unfortunately for him, he used a white “whizzinator”.
Another time, an offender was told that he was being arrested. He panicked and decided to run through the window, that was in his officer’s cubicle (1st story). Apparently, not thinking that he was in South Florida, he bounced off of the hurricane-proof glass. When he woke up, he was already in handcuffs, ready to go.
Guy showed up to probation reeking of alcohol (a multiple time offender of course) naturally he got selected for a “random” breath test. Dude blew . 293 and told me he last had a drink last night.
Now policy was that he could either have someone pick him up or he could stay until he sobered up (jail was overcrowded ).
Now he starts ranting and raving about how he is going to be late to work and he doesn’t have anyone to call. I tell him tough shit, (I’m not letting him go alone to kill someone on the highway).
Eventually he gets desperate and calls his ex-girlfriend and the crazy thing is she agrees to come! She shows up pissed as hell. I photocopy her license and hand him over to her. He tells me that he might get fired cause he’s going to be late. The ex gives him the shitiest shit eye I’ve ever seen and says ” you haven’t been this early to work in years! ”
I laughed my ass off till I went to bed.
Not an officer, but I was on probation at the time. We’re in the waiting room, and some kid ( maybe 18-19) pulls out a small one-hitter pipe. Everyone looks at him and he just takes a hit of spice in the fucking waiting room, with everyone there just looking at him
County sheriffs deputy here, our bomb squad was called out to help with a probation search after agents found a pipe bomb in the felons house while doing a home visit. Blew it up with a robot in the middle of a nice middle-class neighborhood.
Not a P. O. I was on probation years ago. At the time I had a serious opioid and benzo habit. I had just spent a week in jail over a probation violation for not paying a fine. Got out, started getting high right away, since I didn’t use for a week my tolerance went down a bit. I had to see my probation officer in a week from the time I got out. That whole week was a blur but I remember the night before, I did a few pills, passed out in my car in a grocery store parking lot.
I wake up to cops around me. They make me get out, I take a sobriety test where you watch their fingers and such, the breathalyzer, I pass both. I get back in my car, they tell me to get going but leave before I did. I didn’t want to drive that messed up, so I didn’t and passed out again in the same spot. The same cops come back a few hours later, again they give me the tests and I pass. They tell me to pull my car over to the side of the street where I sleep for the night.
The next morning I go to see my PO, I was still completely wasted, though, at the time I didn’t realize this. My P. O. knows I am messed up the minute she looks at me. She sends me in the bathroom with this guy to piss in a cup, when coming out of the bathroom I had forgotten to button my pants, they fall down right in front of her, I had underwear on, fortunately. She asks me if I have a drug problem, I tell her no, but I may fail the drug test because of prescriptions. She again asks me if I need to go to rehab, I say no. Looking back on it, she was giving me the option of rehab rather then jail. Anyway, she handcuffs me and takes me to country jail, I was there for 3 months. To top it all off, I had driven to my PO’s office. Luckily she didn’t site me for the DUI though. They had my car impounded and I never got it back.
This was years ago. I have over 3 years sober now. I was a complete fuck up, and am so thankful to be where I am today.
Here’s to hoping that all the law breakers have learned their lesson and begun the process of rebuilding their lives.