Probation officers are a critical part of the Carbon County court system, supervising thousands of people annually.

Just ask Joe Berke, deputy chief adult probation officer, and Kimmy Mulik, deputy chief juvenile probation officer.

The two Carbon County officers have a combined 60-plus years of supervision under their belts and have seen it all, from changes in the types of offenses and how the offices operate to the ballooning caseloads and way they help those under supervision.

“You have to be a jack-of-all-trades in this job,” Berke said. “I think people don’t really understand what we truly do. We work for the courts but we also work for the community. We’re counselors, drug and alcohol treatment specialists, pharmacists, lawyers. That’s all part of the job. We have to know the law. We have to know drugs. We have to know the treatment.”

“It can break you down if you don’t have the mentality for it,” Mulik added. “There are some things (you see and do in this job) that you just can’t take home at the end of the day, but you do.”

The Carbon County Commissioners recognized the men and women in the two departments by proclaiming this week as Pretrial, Probation and Parole Supervision Week in the county.

Their journey

Berke began his career in June 1988.

“I did an internship with (District Judge) Ed Lewis when his office was up on Broadway,” he said, adding that he wasn’t sure what he really wanted to do at that time. “I thought let’s give this a try and Ed said, ‘you may want to get other aspects here, why don’t you give probation a try’ so I went up to the (adult) probation office and spoke with Tony Harvilla, who was the chief back then. I started looking at the courts and had an interest in the legal system in general.

“You have to like dealing with people and the legal system. I found it interesting.”

At that time, Berke joined an office that employed four people who oversaw an average of 325 cases.

Mulik’s story begins a little differently. She was hired in the juvenile probation office in September 1987 to serve as the office secretary before moving to her post.

“It was not my plan,” she said, adding that she applied for a secretary position in another county office but did not get it.

“Then I got a random call from probation saying ‘we got an aide’s job here’ and I was like ‘probation, what’s probation?’ I went for the interview and got the position. I was basically the secretary for an office of three. There were no computers so all reports I typed with an old-fashioned typewriter and then just progressed through system and got master’s degree and worked my way up to the deputy position.”

Changes

Both Berke and Mulik agree, have seen significant changes in the past 30 years.

“Technology advancements really made the job more efficient,” Berke said. “We didn’t have cellphones (when I started) so when you were out in the field you were on your own.

“We also didn’t even have radios. You were out there by yourself without any protection except your own wits. Now our officers do defensive tactics work, have duty belts and carry firearms.”

“It’s the same for us but our difference is we don’t carry firearms because the president judges did not want us to since we are around the kids, go into the schools,” Mulik said.

Some of the biggest changes both offices have seen though are the higher caseloads and types of cases they are supervising.

“When I first started back in 1988, there were basically four of us (in the adult probation office) and we had about 325 cases,” Berke said. “Now we have 2,043 cases and have one chief, 11 professional staff and three support staff.”

That means on average, each adult probation officer supervises anywhere between 155 and 500 cases at a time.

“The average is about 170 per officer but we also do multiple things,” Berke said.

The caseload on the juvenile side is smaller, averaging between 20 and 40 cases per probation officer at any given time, but for the office of seven, which includes four officers who supervise youths, they must also wear multiple hats.

“In Carbon County, our office deals with cases from the filing of charges until case closure,” Mulik said. “We process all cases, acting as juvenile clerk of courts.”

But both officers said that the types of cases coming through their offices are rapidly changing.

In the early 1990s, most cases coming through the adult probation office were alcohol related.

“You always had the local drunk who drank too much and beat his wife up,” Berke said. “It was always alcohol.

“Then marijuana started mixing into that cycle and then cocaine started mixing into that cycle and then prescription pills got mixed in and then we ended up getting some heroin and now it is heroin and methamphetamine,” Berke said. “Now most of our cases are drug and alcohol related.”

Mulik said that juvenile cases used to be dominated by thefts, simple assaults and other small offenses, but has shifted to more drugs and various sexual offenses, some as a result of the ease of disseminating graphic pictures right from a smartphone.

“Drugs are definitely one of the top ones,” she said. “You have kids growing up in addicted families so the only thing they know is to use and they use with their parents. “When I started 30 years ago, I was supervising say Johnny Smith, then all of a sudden Johnny Smith has a kid and I’m supervising his kid. Now I’m in the third stage where I’m supervising the kid’s kid. That’s what I am seeing now. Will the cycle ever end? I don’t know.”

The future of supervision

Berke said his office is moving from former ways of supervision to more evidence-based practices to help people moving through the court system.

“That’s where the state is heading,” he said. “They’re trying something different.”

That includes introducing practices like motivational interviewing to see if the client is willing to change and ways to help facilitate that change, as well as creating treatment plans and goals, something the juvenile probation system has been doing for the past few years.

The level of supervision needed is based on treatment plans that the officers create and the goals the clients have as they work through their sentence.

“The goal is to provide these youth with competencies, holding them accountable for their actions, victim restoration and community protection,” Mulik said. “Everyone is involved in treatment (parents, school districts). It’s a team effort.”

“(The new way of supervision) is going to be difficult implementing based on the large size of the cases we have,” Berke said. “We’re a sixth-class county here but we probably have almost Monroe County numbers and they have more resources and officers. It will be challenging.”

Some possible solutions are already being implemented in the form of specialty courts.

Carbon County has a veterans treatment court to help veterans in trouble with the law navigate through their sentence with treatment-based programs for their addictions rather than being incarcerated.

“If we get some diversionary programs I think that will help a lot,” Berke said.

No matter what the future holds though, both Berke and Mulik said that their teams will handle whatever comes their way.

“We are a good team and each of us puts forth 100 percent in assisting youth in becoming productive members of society,” Mulik said. “Without this staff, I wouldn’t be doing as good a job like I am doing now.”

“Teamwork is an essential part because you can’t accomplish everything yourself,” Berke said.