The Drive Home is our article series that focuses on real experiences of our staff – the meaningful moments and challenges that shape a day working at Corrections.

In this article, we hear from Lizzie, a probation officer who supports people on community-based sentences to make positive changes in their lives, as well as ensure they comply with the orders of their sentence.

It sounds so obvious, but I always clean up my desk before I leave. I’ve got manuals, notebooks and files galore, so putting those away and tidying my space helps me wind down.

The drive home is a quiet time of reflection for me, and I use the opportunity for an internal debrief about my day. I want to make sure I’m leaving that stuff at the door before I get home.

Some days I feel a sense of accomplishment, knowing I’ve done my part to support someone in their rehabilitation journey, or made the right call to protect the wider community. But on some of those tougher days, it can be deflating. 

Daily rhythm

Today was a good reminder that no two days are the same at Corrections. I was scheduled to be at Court, so my morning was spent prepping for any overnight arrests, reviewing files, and chasing up any loose ends.

As a probation officer in Court, I represent Corrections in relation to community-based sentences, reports, updates on a person’s progress, and sentencing options. Sometimes this will involve defending an opposition to bail, where a probation officer outlines their reasoning for holding a person in custody until charges can be resolved. This might be for the risk they pose to the public, potential victims, or to themselves in the case of people with alcohol and drug addictions.

Court can be unpredictable – sometimes matters move quickly, sometimes you wait for hours. Today, my case was the last one called. Because of this unpredictability, there’s often a good amount of downtime between court matters. I’ll use the time to respond to emails, check on electronic monitoring compliance or write a couple of lines of a report.

When I returned to the office, I needed to complete a parole recall. This is the process for working with the New Zealand Parole Board to recall a person’s parole and bring them back to prison. Unfortunately, the reality is that sometimes the best-case scenario for public safety is returning an individual to prison.

As a probation officer, a recall can be frustrating – a lot of effort, work and relationship-building goes in to supporting an individual to stay on track with their sentence in the community. All you can really do is acknowledge the feeling and push on to do the work that needs to be done. 

Influencing change

It can be a challenging role. Sometimes we’re seeing people at rock bottom, and how we interact with them is hugely influential. In some cases, we might be the first person or group of people that’s shown them respect and taken the opportunity to get to know them. A conviction and a ‘summary of facts’ isn’t who that person is; there’s so much more to their story and how they ended up with us.

It can be difficult to balance the important work of supporting offenders while recognising that public safety, particularly when victims are involved, is essential. The reality is that, in this role, you need to be ready to be confronted by some hard things. People who are on sentence have their own trauma and their own histories, so you need to be willing to listen and learn so you can figure out how you’re going to work with them to meet the requirements of their sentence.

Witnessing people make meaningful and positive change to their lives is what makes the role hugely rewarding. I love seeing other people succeed but they aren’t going to make changes overnight. You’ve got to be patient, resilient and able to have those hard conversations.

Working as a team

While I’m working primarily with the person on sentence, there’s so many other people I collaborate with to ensure the safety of the community and the victims. This can include the courts, whānau, and social service agencies.

When we’re working in the community, we utilise a lot of safety precautions that we learn during training. We’re never working on our own or in isolation.

Teamwork is important in this role. You can’t go home at the end of the day and tell your family about a person on sentence, so we rely on our colleagues. Our team is open and we’re often bouncing ideas of each other, checking to make sure our practice is right. The support is always right there whether it’s another probation officer, practice leader, or a manager. 

Being in a frontline role, I’m really at the heart of encouraging people to make positive change. It’s a role for someone who is caring, patient and resilient, with strong morals. It offers constant opportunities to learn, grow and make a difference in the lives of both individuals and in the community.

It can be full on, but I feel proud of the work I do as a probation officer.