Greeting Denizens, I wanted to discuss the topic of Probation overall both as a technical system and as roleplay.

Probation Officers can inject some extra roleplay into criminals lives in multiple ways, a bit of fear/drama/uneasiness into the lives of those who are on probation or parole and something to talk about in general roleplay with their friends. They can also sometimes be a friend to those who are on probation by perhaps in some cases referring individuals to rehab or psychiatric therapy rather than jail time for violating probation by acting out or failing a drug test.

Probation is one aspect of CD that isn't quite built up quite yet, Probation Officers do have access as far as seeing who's in lock up or psychiatric hold and what crimes were done, however once the inmates are released they're not on any books probationary wise so to keep tabs on those who will be released the Officer will need to go through some hoops manually to keep tabs, which is something that's realistic and also is good role play and a bit of detective work but those who aren't kept track of kind of escape the probation system altogether.

The main concern of not having a technical system to keep tabs on inmates who are released and then put on perhaps on some sort of timed probation system post-release is that the probation officer role hasn't been very active historically and inmates do get released sometimes in less than a day or after a day or 2 in the system which can be easy to miss.

Although many on the books likely wouldn't even report to probation regardless just as happens in real life at times, and with it being so hard to catch criminals on the vast streets of CD with multiple HPD officers searching for them it will of course be even harder for a probation officer or two to track those who wish to evade them as well. Sometimes the officers may go above and beyond to do their job correctly, other times officers may just let the probationers be, as it makes life easier for both sides.

Some things that could perhaps help the Probation office is perhaps upon arrest asking criminals to provide a phone number, address, and place of work. Things which some criminals may or may not have but having an address and a place of work are some things that probation officers certainly do demand of those who are released, even if they may lie about them and have the P.O completely thrown off track.

Please do chime in with ideas on this, how can we make the link between jail and probation a better smoother one and any ideas regarding the probation office and the probation officer role.