The Disproportionate Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in ...

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View of Probation Officer
In this section, youth were asked questions about the fairness and biases of
probation officers. They were also asked to comment on how they viewed their probation
officer and if they would like to be probation officers themselves. In both the black and
white interviews, the youth tended to have very positive opinions of their probation
officer. White interviews consisted of mostly one word and short phrased answers, Thus,
while the same trends emerged for whites and blacks, most of what follows has been
taken from interviews with black youth.
Fairness and Biases
In both races, a small percentage (13 percent for whites and 14 percent for blacks)
felt their probation officers did not treat them fairly. The majority indicated the probation
officer usually treated them with fairness and understanding (Tables 5 & 6). From the
interviews, the impression was given that most of these kids had good, if not close
relationships with their probation officer. Many of the answers were very general, like:
“He’s nice. I like him a lot. I wouldn’t trade anything for him.” Some gave much more in
depth answers, however. A 15 year old black girl said,
My probation officer is nice to me. I should be locked up but she is pretty
nice to me. I don’t like my friend’s probation officer. I don’t know
anything about probation officers except my own and she is nice to me.