Center strives to keep parolees on the right track

Every month, 9,000 offenders check in at the Fremont Street office of Adult Parole and Probation in Salt Lake City.

Staff there conduct a urinalysis test on 3,500 offenders every month, looking for traces of cocaine, opiates, methamphetamine or THC, the main chemical in marijuana.

During the first year under AP&P's supervision, about half of these offenders will keep their commitments to the court and their parole and probation agents. But by the end of the first year, 50 percent will be returned to prison for new crimes or for violating these agreements. By the end of three years, only 35 of 100 former inmates will still be out of prison.

One recent day this month, 14 inmates just released from prison reported to the Fremont Street office. Dozens more reported for regular visits with their agents.

Here are snapshots from three offenders and their meetings with parole and probation agents.

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Parole officer James Haywood is talking tough about his 1 p.m. appointment.

The parolee is a generational drug user, he explains. Methamphetamine. Her mom has been a user, and now so is she.

What is also notable is that the parolee is now pregnant.

"It's really on now," said Haywood, a 20-year-veteran of the division. "I'm going to be all over her."

But when 24-year-old Ashley Burnett shows up, Haywood softens. The young woman is focused and well-groomed. Hayward says later she's obviously not high, so he doesn't test her urine for drugs. Instead, he updates her address and looks for ways to solve a new problem with Burnett's employment.

She was working at Friday's restaurant, she explains, but the chain transferred her to the South Towne Center location, and she doesn't have transportation.

"Let's find you something where you are not going to be on your feet all day," he says.

After more questions, Haywood learns she wants to go back to school, so he agrees to freeze her job requirements and payments toward the $7,000 in restitution she's paying back to her victims. This way, she can get into school full time and hit the books right away.

The woman's mother has been clean for five or six years now, and the two are living together. Burnett will get a part-time job taking customer service calls for now while she applies for school grants. He says she's got to keep proving she's making progress and on the right track. And he'll be watching.