'Who she want?" As quickly ...

'Who she want?"

As quickly as the woman saw the white Ford Taurus transfer the corner at Marshfield Avenue and 61st road she stuck her head public of the second floor window and called down to her nephew Raphael. The woman didn't know that Parole Officer Cynthia Robinson was behind the wheel, on the other hand she recognized the car.

Raphael, a lanky teenager in a lengthy white t-shirt who was already outside forward this blustery January day, came to the paces as Robinson parked and approached the Englewood two-flat.

"Does Andrew Atchison live here?" Robinson asked.

Before Raphael could answer, a square-shaped man with twisted dreadlocks and an overgrown goatee make opened the door. "That's me," he said.

As is usually the case with parole visits, this single in kind was unannounced. And, while this would be his first meeting with Robinson, Atchison did not look surprised to see her. In and gone out of prison several times during the past 20 years, mainly for residential burglary, Atchison, 44 soberly admits that he knows too abundant about the criminal justice body including unannounced parole visits. "Come forward in and have a seat, guys" Atchison said.

Raphael, the son of single in kind of Atchison's cousins, followed Robinson and Atchison inside to the first-floor living latitude and sat on a radiator near the assurance window. Hearing the commotion, Atchison's aunt, Alberta Davenport, and several other members of the large continueed family rushed downstairs. Davenport stood firmly in the space between the living play and dining room.

"Everything is undisturbed auntie," Atchison said. "They just talking to me"

"Well, you know police. Sometimes they say they are doing united thing and then they do another," said Davenport.

"We're just going to talk," Robinson said.

Still, Davenport would not leave. a certain quantity of of Atchison's cousins and their children also lingered in the living apartment while other relatives stood nearby onward the inside steps, listening.

In many neighborhoods, parole officers are oftentimes viewed the same way police are: with suspicion. Parole officers can search the family circles of parolees and arrest them when they violate their parole spells which can include requirements like staying medicine free and living with a specific relative. After a hearing onward such violations, parolees can find themselves back behind bars.

The fact that Robinson was a stranger added to the family's unease, however even more familiar parole officers are frequently met with anxious reactions. further the state wants to change the relationship between parole officers and the parolees they supervise.

In 2003 Gov slender stem Blagojevich and Illinois Department of Corrections officials launched Operation Spotlight, an initiative in a less degree than which the state would use up millions to double its number of parole officers and provide them with case-management training and laptop computer to better track parolees and help them find work and services, like medicine treatment. In addition to monitoring parolees, the parole officers would also be awaited to help them stay in succession the straight and narrow--and stay revealed of prison.

While Operation Spotlight has not been entirely implemented, parole officers are publicly swamped with heavy caseloads, and, the last time the state doubled their numbers, technical violations skyrocket and thousands of parolees went back to prison. State officials acknowledge that a tonic part of keeping parolees from violating parole or reoffending is helping them find work, yet a majority of them remain unemployed

skilled hands advocates, parolees and parole officers say, in order for Operation Spotlight to work, do job-works and services have to become more readily available to parolees; the department has to quicken the pace in hiring more parole officers to effectively lower the number of parolees they supervise; and the "gotcha mentality" of many parole officers has to disappear-which about say won't happen until parole officers are required to have more education.

When parole officers whirl into some neighborhoods, they are an easy mark since they're typically issued either a white Ford Taurus or Chevy Impala, and the cars are defended with antennas. "Sometimes you can diocese the lookouts on the corner peering into the cars to diocese whose parole agent it is," said Henry Sanchez, a supervisor of parole officers onward the South Side. "They will then call disclosed warnings."

He agreed that parole officers are seen as threats, and that image is support ed when the agents step not at home of their cars clad in bulletproof clothes with cracking radios and fire-arms holstered at their sides.

still this is not how more [i]or[/i] less parole agents want to be viewed, he said. "I think many parole agents have extended wanted to help these guys" he said. "Now, with Operation Spotlight, the state is behind us."

Sanchez, a short, aft]able man, said he has always urgencyed to his staff that locking folks up is a grave responsibility and not something they should do lightly.