Based on Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s memorandum issued at 4 p.m. yesterday, all probation officers and two parole officers are considered providing “essential services.”
Currently, there are five probation officers, while the Board of Parole has two parole officers.
Fitial said in his memorandum: “The employees whose positions are listed above should only work when scheduled and should be the only employees working. The department head should carefully evaluate workload demands and have only those employees who are essential and needed report to work.”
“Simply being categorized as an ‘essential/critical employee’ does not translate to reporting to work each day during the shutdown period,” Fitial said.
The Adult Probation Office has over 2,700 offenders under its community supervision, according to Chief Probation Officer Ursula Lifoifoi Aldan.
These include sex offenders, murderers, thieves, burglars, domestic violence offenders, drug offenders, those convicted of aggravated assault, fish and wildlife/gaming offenders, other individuals convicted of felonies and misdemeanors, and traffic offenders, such as reckless driving and DUI.
The CNMI recidivism rate is 67 percent in criminal and 30 percent in traffic, Aldan said.
Currently, a probation officer watches over 540 probationers.
In the case of Board of Parole, there are three parole officers including Chief Parole Officer Joseph Guerrero.
“I too must deal with the issues of the parolees as well as take load cases,” Guerrero said in an e-mail to the Variety.
There are currently 36 parolees being monitored on Saipan and one on Tinian.
“Give and take we might see between 9 to 16 new parolees added to the existing number for this year, but again with budget issue the board has yet to meet to conduct a parole hearing — we have four applicants to hear plus one revocation,” Guerrero added.
