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Officers check up on their charges
By ALEX LEARY © St. Petersburg Times, published April 15, 2001
And their parents don't know what to do with them. "You fellas going to be able to take him to jail tonight?" one man said, hurriedly and with considerable desperation, as the Citrus County sheriff's deputies approached his Citrus Springs home. "Can you cuff him, take him around the block?" The deputies were looking for the man's 15-year-old stepson, Jessup, who is on probation for misdemeanor battery and petty theft. (The Times is not using the boy's full name because of his age.) It was 9 p.m. Thursday, and Jessup was not home, a violation of his curfew. The surprise visit was part of a probation roundup organized by the Sheriff's Office. Four times a year, a handful of deputies partner with probation officers from various agencies and fan out to check on 100 or so of the 1,000 men, women and juveniles under court restriction. Thursday was an ideal opportunity because most of the people already had contact with their probation officer earlier in the week, and it was the day before the extended Easter weekend began. "If they are going to start violating, it's going to be the night prior (to Easter weekend)," Detective Sgt. David Wyllie told journalists the Sheriff's Office invited to observe the four-hour roundup. "They call me Juvenile Joe," Deputy Joseph Faherty said by way of introduction, sitting behind the wheel of his white Crown Victoria. "I know a lot about delinquency." Faherty, 34, a compact man with clipped hair and a New York accent, is a former probation officer who joined the Sheriff's Office a few years ago and is now a school resource officer at the Renaissance Center, an alternative school for students who misbehave. Leading the way, in another cruiser, was Deputy Phil Royal, a resource officer at Crystal River Middle School, and Jim Lightbody, a 29-year-old probation officer with the Department of Juvenile Justice. First stop: the Highlands area of Inverness. The men approached a nice home with a manicured lawn. A bare-chested man answers the door and invites them in. Brandon, 16, a student at Citrus High School, is sitting on the couch watching the History Channel. "Everything going all right?" Lightbody asked Brandon's grandfather. Lightbody inquired about a story Brandon wrote in class and asks to see it. "You write a story and you don't keep it," Lightbody joked. "You're killing me." He asked to see Brandon's report card. Some juvenile offenders must maintain a certain grade point average as a condition of their probation. Three Cs and an A, in English. "You gotta get that GPA up, Bubba," Lightbody said. "Too much socializing, not enough studying." "Yeah," Brandon responded, smiling. 'You can't give up on the kids'Colleagues say Lightbody is one of the best probation officers around because he can be both easy-going and firm with the kids. He looks cool, too, with long sideburns and carpenter jeans and expensive sneakers. And, above all, he seems to be able to look past the boys' tough exteriors and see that some of them are not punks without futures, but young men with names and personalities and individual talents and needs. Kids who can be rehabilitated before it's too late. "It's nice to see them successful when you see them down the road. You kind of changed their life," said Lightbody, who graduated from Crystal River High School in 1989. "There is no miracle cure and every kid is different. Every case is different. That's the most frustrating part. It's also the fun part, trying to figure it out." After visiting another boy, on probation for petty theft, the group headed to downtown Inverness, driving west on State Road 44. Royal made an abrupt U-turn and pulled into the parking lot in front of Skipper's Office Supply. Lightbody saw one of his kids. The boy, who has a mop of bleached-blond hair, was walking with a friend, a skinny youth dressed in baggy Tommy Hilfiger jeans and a yellow Tommy shirt. As Lightbody asked routine questions, the skinny kid paced, drawing attention from Royal and Faherty. "What's your buddy so nervous for?" Faherty asked. "If I find dope on him, you're going with him." The friend refused to be searched, as is his right, and Faherty dropped the issue, convinced the boy is not concealing a weapon. "It could be anything like cigarettes that he doesn't want us to find," Lightbody said after the two boys walked off. The daylight had begun to fade when the probation squad pulled up to a house in a neighborhood west of Independence Highway in Inverness. A muscular Rottweiler walked across the road and a few children played nearby. They waved, the automatic way most people do when the cops roll by. Justin, one of Lightbody's newest cases, was transferred from another county and attends the Renaissance Center, where he has gotten into trouble with teachers and has earned a reputation as a pothead. He is home during curfew, which is good, but Lightbody is not pleased. Justin has admitted to smoking pot again and is candid about his troubles at school. "From here on out you can leave it at that screw off or make it worse," Lightbody said. "Are you buying already rolled or are you rolling your own?" Faherty asked, before warning about dealers who lace marijuana with PCP, a hallucinogenic. The casual nature of the conversation was striking. Justin's parents seemed both concerned and unconcerned. His surrogate mother blithely joked about her own experience in the back of a cop car and makes light of the very good chance Justin will spend some time in a juvenile jail. "He's going as fast as he can," she said. But she also asks the deputies to warn her before they show up, so the younger children can be kept inside as Justin is interviewed. "They kind of look up to him," she said. Asked whether the probationary restrictions have made a difference in his son's life, the father, a bearded man wearing a faded black Dale Earnhardt T-shirt, said in a quiet voice: "I don't see it turning him around, but every little bit helps. He's hard-headed. He's going to have to learn the hard way." Back in the cruiser, Faherty is asked if he ever gets discouraged by the kids he is supposed to help rehabilitate. "I've never thrown up my hands. You can't give up on the kids. They'll sense that. "Kids would say I was the meanest probation officer, but you gotta care. You gotta hold them accountable for their actions. You want to make a difference." 'It's a nice scare for him'The fragile intersection of hope and hopelessness was on display in Citrus Springs, the last stop of the probation roundup for Faherty and his partners. Jessup, the 15-year-old on probation for petty theft and battery, had not strayed far from home, but visiting the girl a few doors down was still a violation of his probation. He also failed a recent drug test. Wearing baggy chalk-colored pants, a white tank top and a red baseball hat twisted sideways, Jessup stood on the sidewalk talking with the deputies and his probation officer. They did not intend to bring Jessup to jail, but, given his stepfather's insistence, they attempted to scare him by briefly detaining him with handcuffs. "I told you so. I kept telling you," the stepfather said, his breath heavy with alcohol. Jessup is offered a deal. He won't be taken in if he stays home for the entire Easter weekend, including Monday. Probation officers have the authority to raise and lower curfews and place people under house arrest. "You ain't going skateboarding. You ain't doing nothing," the stepfather said. Jessup seemed unfazed by the whole event, but his stepfather hoped it would do some good. "I want him to know that this isn't what he wants. He needs an education." Jessup's mother added: "I think it's a nice scare for him. He might straighten up."
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