How Does This Course Relate to Your Career?

Law Is Social Control

Who is given the privilege to control society is the nectar for historians, researchers, jurists, and now you.

I have selected a textbook appropriate for criminal justice, political science, sociology, and other majors within the social sciences. It provides legal terminology, systemic models, evolutionary examples of law, legal writing, and analysis.

While this course will aid those on their way to law school, it is also intended for those who will engage in lifelong learning and scholarly pursuits since little can be done by a person today that is not within the realm of law and its practitioners.

Probation Officer Scenario

Perhaps you intend to become a probation officer and can't see the relevance of this course. A scenario might help to clarify how knowledge of the legal system will benefit you.

Scenario of Probation Officer

Scenario Description:

probation officer You attend the state Probation, Parole and Corrections Association annual meeting for the tri-state region and hear about a new technique in search and seizure with good results. You are in the field and have an opportunity to initiate it and do so. The result is an arrest and the confiscation of contraband.

Probation officers may arrest those individuals on probation with or without probable cause. Having been convicted of a felony means that one's Constitutional Rights have been limited in response to their conviction. The Probation officer is arresting them for violating the conditions of their probation (violated the court's order to remain a law abiding citizen) and for a new charge (the contraband).

On your way to a movie, you receive a call that the probationer's defense attorney is challenging your actions, as it is not listed in your jurisdiction's protocol. Do you lose the contraband that you used as the basis for a new charge?

Your Role and Some Thought-provoking Questions:

A law clerk, the legal secretary, the paralegal, the prosecutor, and the trial supervisor will investigate this question. You are the probation officer in the scenario and might ask yourself the following questions:

Where did you hear about this new custom?
Why did you use it?
What type of results has this new practice produced for you?
Who (probation office, jurisdiction, state) else uses it with success?

You will have to answer the above questions in a legal memorandum and will take it into court. Since you cannot practice the law, you will have to disseminate the legal memorandum to the prosecutors, your office, and the chief of probation. The prosecutor will make the argument in court to the judge and the defense attorney will oppose it.

Resources

You may need the following information to succeed in your mission:

Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
www.acjs.org
American Correctional Association
www.aca.org
American Probation and Parole Association
www.appa-net.org

Instructor's Analysis

Be sure that you read the scenario carefully and have the answers to the above Thought-provoking Questions in mind. After reading the scenario the second time, you can click here to view Instructor's Analysis.

As a probation officer, you have engaged in various legal activities, knowing the legal system though not engaging in the practice of law. As a professional in the legal system, be prepared for friends asking for legal advice. Give them questions to ask an attorney, so as to use their time—which is the attorney's billing time—wisely.

Here are some of my favorite questions: "Is it true that if...

a Highway Patrol Officer gives you a ticket without wearing his hat, the ticket does not count?
the officer does not show up to court, the ticket is dropped?
I get a ticket in another state, it will never appear on my driving record?
I swallow the drugs, no one will be able to prove I had them?"

Do you think you know answers to the above questions?