< Previous20 PERSPECTIVES CONSEQUENCES OF NONPAYMENT Given the financial stress and problems resulting from fines and fees imposed on those on community supervision, the issue of supervision revocation3 for nonpayment comes into question. The punitive response to the nonpayment of fines and fees has been compared to the historical practice of utilizing debtors’ prisons to confine individuals who had taken on unmanageable debt until those debts were paid off (Sobol, 2016). Upon discontinuation of debtors’ prisons, similar approaches to handling debt were integrated into American carceral practices, leading to the eventual 1983 United States Supreme Court ruling in Bearden v. Georgia, which determined that revocation cannot be used for nonpayment when one cannot afford to pay and that revocation can only be considered if nonpayment was willful and other violations of supervision had been committed (Sobol, 2016). Although the Bearden decision aimed to prevent states from incarcerating individuals for being unable to make payments towards their monetary sanctions, states have other methods of punishing those on community supervision who fall behind in payments. Even setting aside the potential loss of freedom, individuals on community supervision, including newly released parolees, who cannot afford to make immediate payment may be subject to additional fees, potential suspension of their driving license, and restriction of voting rights (Foster, 2020). When states are capable of revoking a driver’s license for nonpayment, they can thereby impede the individual’s ability to have reliable transportation to work (Bannon et al., 2010; Foster, 2020; Link, Hyatt, et al., 2020; Ruhland et al., 2020; Sobal, 2016). Without reliable transportation to their workplace, those on community supervision can lose a job, thus impacting their ability to pay their monetary sanctions. Moreover, a driver’s license can be expensive to reinstate, so a vicious cycle of nonpayment is created that is not the fault of those under supervision. Without their drivers’ license, and potentially no job because of unreliable transportation, the payment of monetary sanctions can get further postponed, causing individuals to be increasingly behind in their payments. Other collateral consequences include losing the right to vote and the potential for further incarceration (Foster, 2020). For example, there are states that allow those on probation to have their probation extended or even revoked, with consequent re-incarceration, for willful nonpayment of their fines and fees (Bannon et al., 2010; Ruhland et al., 2020). Some states even divert individuals who are not paying their monetary sanctions, or struggling to pay, to specialty caseloads that solely focus on debt collection, which can further perpetuate debt (Ruhland et al., 2020). Moreover, people are still being jailed and imprisoned for failure to pay fines and fees regardless of their ability to do so and, importantly, regardless of the statutory and state laws that ban such actions (Sobol, 2016). Furthermore, these collateral consequences go beyond just the criminal legal system and individual restrictions: they also affect the quality of life of both the individuals and their family members. Those who cannot afford to pay their fines and fees may abscond, which can result in supervision revocation when caught (Harris et al., 2010; Ruhland, 2021). For instance, Ruhland (2021) found that those on community supervision see paying their fees as the hardest condition of supervision to deal with, as they fear that being unable to pay will result in a revocation. From this perspective, all options appear to have the same result VOLUME 49, NUMBER 1of revocation and potential incarceration. Either one risks nonpayment and faces legal consequences or violates supervision conditions with the hope of not getting caught. Unfortunately, that also means that monetary sanctions fail at deterring reoffending and instead may drive individuals back into criminal behavior, even if that is the last thing they would want to do. ABOLISHING OR LIMITING FINES & FEES The idea of abolishing fines and fees is certainly not new. In fact, the idea of abolishing the collection of debt dates back to the 1820s (Sobol, 2016). However, little has been done to remove these practices from the criminal legal system. It is thus prudent that we look at all the potential benefits that would accrue to individuals, communities, and the justice system if such debts were limited or abolished. One reason to consider abolishing fines and fees is because they hinder the ability to achieve successful rehabilitation and reentry (Bannon et al., 2010). For example, some states convert delinquent criminal justice- related debt to civil judgments, thereby making the information publicly available to credit reporting agencies, and some even report the debts directly to these agencies, with a consequent negative impact on credit scores that lessens the chance of obtaining a loan or mortgage (Bannon et al., 2010). This practice can also affect employment, as most employers run credit checks on their employees (Bannon et al., 2010). Another reason to consider abolishing fines and fees is to reduce the number of people under supervision of the criminal legal system. It is well documented that the increased use of fines and fees has contributed to mass incarceration. Thus, by removing fines and fees associated with supervision, we could potentially reduce the number of people who are reincarcerated for noncompliance by way of nonpayment (Foster, 2020). Moreover, it is important to consider that it is not just the person facing fines or fees who suffers because of this type of financial debt. There are negative impacts on the family and potential negative economic impact on the local community, and the criminal legal system suffers because more individuals are being placed back into an overworked, under-resourced system (Harris, et al., 2010). A compelling reason to consider limiting fines and fees is because some people genuinely cannot afford them. This is a key issue. It is challenging enough for people to find employment, especially when just released on parole, and the criminal legal system can and should take that into consideration. For those who cannot afford to pay, fines and fees can be limited, and a potential sliding fee scale can be utilized. To do this, the defendant can give prior notice of financial circumstances that can be reviewed by the court, and the court can consider a sliding fee scale based on the individual’s employment and income once they are employed and have suitable housing. Offering a sliding fee scale may prevent additional charges, the revoking of probation or parole, and reincarceration. In addition, it would protect individual rights, such as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (see, for example, Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983)). POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS After careful review of the literature and the current standing of fines and fees within community corrections, we propose several policy recommendations that we believe would be beneficial for both the criminal legal system and those impacted by it. First, we recommend that limits and regulations be imposed on the use of fines and fees. In particular, we advocate for limits to be placed on all fines and for evaluation of fees based on the person’s current or possible income source(s). Moreover, there should be regulations limiting the excessive use of fines as well as the adding on of additional fees for nonpayment or late payment. As seen from enactment of Missouri’s SB5 from 2015, limitations can be placed on the use of excessive fines, and reductions can be enacted as far as the percentage a city can derive from fees and fines as well (Thompson et al., 2024). Importantly, a cap of fines and fees for minor traffic violations can be mandated, and, for those who cannot afford to make monetary payment, allowing performance of community service as an alternative can be made an option. As mentioned, several fees are associated with electronic monitoring devices, including implementation charges as well as daily and monthly fees, making them overwhelmingly expensive, especially for those who lack financial resources. However, if we take into consideration a person’s income, electronic monitoring devices could be an asset to an individual’s rehabilitation and reintegration process. For example, if only required to make reasonable payments under a sliding fee scale, those placed on 22 PERSPECTIVES electronic monitoring might be more receptive to wearing the device as a part of their supervision (Fines & Fees Justice Center, 2022). An income-based, sliding-scale fee would help promote fairness as much as accountability based on an individual’s financial capacity, ensuring that those who can afford to pay the full amount do so and those with fewer resources make commensurately reduced, affordable payments. Third, similar to the sliding-scale fee, we recommend the “day fines” system that is currently being used in Sweden and Germany (Jain & Kundu, 2015; Farrell, 1990; Friedman, 1983). Day fines are assessed based on the severity of the crime that was committed and the individual’s income. Considering the severity of the crime and the person’s income, people are arguably punished somewhat equally, as the system charges the same percentage for the crime but does so based on the person’s income (Sobol, 2016). Having the fines based in part on the person’s income makes it easier for each person to follow through with payment and thus to succeed in reintegration. Indeed, prior literature has suggested the adoption of the European Day Fine Model (Link, 2023). However, because of the present inequality in how states utilize financial burden alleviation caused by monetary sanctions, there is reason to be concerned that similar issues would be present in American implementation of day fines. Fourth, we recommend that unnecessary fines and fees be abolished, particularly those that do not contribute to the successful rehabilitation of the individual as well as those that do not contribute to public safety. Moreover, fines and fees that are used for other purposes (i.e., funding random programming and political goals) should be abolished. States should not impose any fine or fee on individuals if those fines or fees have nothing to do with their punishment, rehabilitation, or reintegration back into society. All things considered, we believe that the best choice is to abolish fines and fees in community supervision altogether. This will result in the most long-term benefit, as finances will become less burdensome for those on supervision. Complete abolition of fines and fees also means that individuals can instead focus on addressing their basic needs, furthering their education, and attending therapy or courses that the court wants them to participate in. These activities can be considered once individuals on supervision know that they can save up the funds to pay for them. The abolition of monetary sanctions in community supervision would also allow supervision officers to turn their attention to more pressing matters, rather than focusing on debt collection (Link, 2023). No matter what, this option would provide individuals on community supervision with the most financial-related relief. CONCLUSION Because the use of fines and fees is pervasive within the criminal legal system in the United States and because several policies related to such monetary assessments have been enacted with little to no long-term change, we believe that abolishing fines and fees would be the best type of reform, one that would guarantee actual change within community supervision by reducing the number of people within the legal system. That would ease the burden placed on the system while at the same time giving individuals under supervision actual freedom as opposed to “layaway-freedom,” with its excessive constraints and stress. By removing fines and fees and eliminating the debt that individuals acquire through community supervision, the criminal legal system may see improvements in completion rates and successful reentry (Link, 2023). Instead of having to work hard to pay off their debt, individuals under community supervision can use the money they earn to support themselves and their families, thereby becoming parts of their communities in the fullest sense. We understand, of course, that such comprehensive policy changes require a reboot of the system, and thus we propose that states take significant first steps by waiving fines and fees for individuals without the means to pay for them, implementing “day fines” or payment plans for those who can, and at the same time offering community service as an alternative for those who would rather give back to the community as opposed to the criminal legal system. This approach can, at the very least, help decrease the strain placed on individuals on community supervision while they regain their autonomy, find gainful employment, reconnect with family, and establish their resources–all which are needed for their successful reintegration. VOLUME 49, NUMBER 1REFERENCES Atkinson, T. (2016). A fine scheme: How municipal fines become crushing debt in the shadow of the new debtors’ prisons. Harv. CR-CLL Rev., 51, 189. https://journals.law. harvard.edu/crcl/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2009/06/ HLC102_crop.pdf Bannon, A., Nagrecha, M., & Diller, R. (2010). Criminal justice debt: A barrier to reentry. Brennan Center for Justice, New York University Law School. https://www. brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/criminal- justice-debt-barrier-reentry Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983). Beckett, K., & Harris, A. (2011). On cash and conviction: Monetary sanctions as misguided policy. 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Fiscal Pressures, the Great Recession, and Monetary Sanctions in Washington Courts of Limited Jurisdiction. UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review, 4(1), 157. https://escholarship.org/content/ qt8h95m64x/qt8h95m64x.pdf Farrell, P. G. (1990). The day-fine comes to America. Buffalo Law Review, 38(2), 591-618. https:// digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol38/ iss2/7 Fines & Fees Justice Center. (2022). Electronic monitoring fees: A 50-state survey of the costs assessed to people on e-supervision. https:// finesandfeesjusticecenter.org/content/uploads/2022/09/ FFJC-Electronic-Monitoring-Fees-Survey-2022.pdf Foster, L. (2020). The price of justice: Fines, fees and the criminalization of poverty in the United States. University of Miami Race and Social Justice Law Review, 11(1), 1-32. https://repository.law.miami.edu/umrsjlr/vol11/iss1/3 Friedman, G. M. (1983). The West German day-fine system: A Possibility for the United States. University of Chicago Law Review, 50(1), 281-304. https:// chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclrev/vol50/iss1/6 Greenberg, C., Meredith, M., & Morse, M. (2016). The growing and broad nature of legal financial obligations: Evidence from Alabama court records. Conn. L. Rev., 48, 1079. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3872741 Gordon, M. A., & Glaser, D. (1991). The use and effects of financial penalties in municipal courts. Criminology, 29(4), 651-676. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2352(96)00058-X Harris, A. (2016). A pound of flesh: Monetary sanctions as punishment for the poor. Russell Sage Foundation. Harris, A., Evans, H., & Beckett, E. (2010). Drawing blood from stones: Legal debt and social inequality in the contemporary United States. American Journal of Sociology, 115(6), 1753-1799. https://www.journals. uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/651940 AUTHOR BIO Meghan Koza, MA., is a Doctoral student in the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Sam Houston State University. Their primary research utilizes qualitative methodologies to examine criminal law, rights of the justice-involved, alternative justice mechanisms, and pathways to correctional reformation. Dragana Derlic, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia Southern University. Dragana’s primary research areas include corrections, offender rehabilitation, program evaluation, and mixed methods. You can find Dragana’s work in the Journal of Correctional Health Care and Crime & Delinquency. Hillsman, S. T. (1990). Fines and day fines. Crime and Justice, 12, 49-98. Holzer, H. J. (2022). Why do people under community supervision work and earn so little? And what can policy do to increase their employment and earnings? The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 701(1), 46-60. DOI: 10.1177/00027162221109992 Jain, S. K., & Kundu, R. P. (2015). Decomposition of accident loss and efficiency of liability rules. Review of Law and Economics, 11(3), 453-480. DOI: 10.1515/rle- 2013-0046 King, K. J. B, Petkus, A., & Ruhland, E. L. (2022). Exploring how fines and fees finance community supervision. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 34(2-3), 139- 144.DOI:10.1525/fsr.2022.34.2-3.139 Kirk, G., Thompson, K. J., Huebner, B. M., Uggen, C., & Shannon, S. K. (2022). Justice by geography: The role of monetary sanctions across communities. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 8(1), 200-220. http://users.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Kirk_et_ al_RSF_22.pdf Link, N. W. (2019). Criminal justice debt during the prisoner reintegration process: Who has it and how much?. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 46(1), 154-172. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854818790291 Link, N. W. (2023). Paid your debt to society? Court- related financial obligations and community supervision during the first year after release from prison. Corrections, 8(3), 202-218. DOI:10.1080/23774657.2021.1878072 Link, N. W., Hyatt, J. M., & Ruhland, E. L. (2020). Monetary sanctions, legal and collateral consequences, and probation & parole: Where do we go from here? UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review, 4(1), 199-212. https:// escholarship.org/uc/item/4w8022j5 Link, N. W., Powell, K., Hyatt, J. M., & Ruhland, E.L. (2020). Considering the process of debt collection in community corrections: The case of the monetary compliance unit. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 37(1), 128-147. https://doi. org/10.1177/1043986220971394 Martin, K. D., Sykes, B. L., Shannon, S., Edwards, F., & Harris, A. (2018). Monetary sanctions: Legal financial obligations in US systems of justice. Annual Review of Criminology, 1(1), 471-495. DOI:10.1146/annurev- criminol-032317-091915 Martin, K. D., Spencer-Suarez, K., & Kirk, G. (2022). Pay or display: Monetary sanctions and the performance of accountability and procedural integrity in New York and Illinois courts. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 8(1), 128-147. https://doi. org/10.7758/RSF.2022.8.1.06 Martinson, R. (1974). What Works? Questions and Answers about Prison Reform. The Public Interest, 42, 22-54. Pacewicz, J., & Robinson, III, J. N. (2021). Pocketbook policing: How race shapes municipal reliance on punitive fines and fees in the Chicago suburbs. Socio-Economic Review, 19(3), 975-1003. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/ mwaa029 Pattillo, M., & Kirk, G. (2021). Layaway freedom: Coercive financialization in the criminal legal system. American Journal of Sociology, 126(4), 889-930. https:// finesandfeesjusticecenter.org/content/uploads/2021/01/ Pattillo-and-Kirk-AJS-2021-Layaway-Freedom.pdf Phelps, M. S., & Curry, C. (2017). Supervision in the community: Probation and parole. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. https:// doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.239 Phelps, M. S. (2020). Mass probation from micro to macro: Tracing the expansion and consequences of community supervision. Annual Review of Criminology, 3, 61-79. https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV- CRIMINOL-011419 Ruback, R. B. (2011). The abolition of fines and fees: Not proven and not compelling. Criminology & Pub. Pol’y, 10, 569. Ruhland, E. (2021). It’s all about the money: An exploration of probation fees. Corrections, 6(1), 65-84. https://doi.org/10.1080/23774657.2018.1564635 Ruhland, E., Petkus, A. A., Link, N.W., Hyatt, J. M., Holmes, B., & Pate, S. (2020). Monetary sanctions in community corrections: Law, policy, and their alignment with correctional goals. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 37(1), 108-127. https://doi. org/10.1177/1043986220971393 Saunders, J. (2024). Supervision Violations and Their Impact on Incarceration: A Technical Analysis of Prison Populations and Admissions from People Serving Community Supervision Terms. New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center. The Sentencing Project. (2024). Mass Incarceration Trends. https://www.sentencingproject.org/app/ uploads/2024/05/Mass-Incarceration-Trends.pdf Shannon, S., Huebner, B. M., Harris, A., Martin, K., Pattillo, M., Pettit, B., ... & Uggen, C. (2020). The broad scope and variation of monetary sanctions: Evidence from eight states. UCLA Crim. Just. L. Rev., 4, 269. https:// escholarship.org/uc/item/64t2w833 Shapiro, J. (2014, May 19). As court fees rise, the poor are paying the price. National Public Radio. https://www. npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fees- punish-the-poor Slavinski, I., & Pettit, B. (2022). Proliferation of Punishment: The Centrality of Legal Fines and Fees in the Landscape of Contemporary Penology. Social Problems, 69(3), 717-742. doi:10.1093/socpro/spaa077 Sobol, N. L. (2016). Charging the poor: Criminal justice debt and modern-day debtors’ prisons. Maryland Law Review, 75(2), 486-540. https:// digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=3701&context=mlr Thompson, K. J., Vaughn, P. E., Giuffre, A., & Huebner, B. M. (2024). Fines and Fees in Flux: Exploring Changes in Municipal Violation Sentencing after Court Reform. Justice Quarterly, 1-26. DOI: 10.1080/07418825.2024.2369184 Wang, L. (2023, May). Punishment beyond prisons 2023: Incarceration and supervision by state. Prison Policy Initiative.27 AMERICAN PROBATION AND PAROLE ASSOCIATION LOOKING BACK WITH A “CONTRARIAN” CRIMINOLOGIST: AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. JIM BYRNE by Ronald P. Corbett, Jr. S hortly after his retirement from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, I sat down with Dr. Jim Byrne in his office for an extended interview. We covered the origins of his interest in criminal justice, the major influences in his life, the scope of his scholarship, and his views of the future. Editor’s Note: The interview has been edited for space and clarity. I.ORIGINS OF INTEREST IN CRIMINOLOGY Ron: Jim, thanks for sitting in for this interview. Could we start with some talk about the origins of the doctoral level? Jim: My origin of interest in CJ came from being in the “University Year for Action “at UMass Amherst. And taking the initiative to leave UMass for a year and work in a community center was a risky decision, but it fits in perfectly with my personality. I think you’ll understand when I tell you that I did that because I didn’t like sitting in classrooms. I thought it was boring, but I like going to school and reading and writing about a wide range of topics. I didn’t think sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture was giving me much. So, I decided to do this domestic version of the Peace Corps, which was a program that only existed in the U.S. from 1972 to 1979. What they offered was a year’s worth of college credit. They told me it could be graded; you had an advisor, and you had to keep a journal. My advisor was Lewis Killian, and he wrote about race and the need for social reform in America.1 Everybody was afraid of taking classes with him. They said he was too tough, but that was because he expected students to actually do the work. I liked him, but I wanted to get out of the classroom and get a taste of the real world. So, I do my University Year for Action (UYA). One of the things I found very quickly–I was working at a place called Friendly House in Worcester–was that the only difference between the people in charge and me was that they had degrees, so that gave them the ability to make decisions. and it kind of pissed me off. So, I decided that I’m going to go and get a graduate degree so I can run these programs, because they don’t know what they’re doing. That fits my personality completely. While in the UYA program, I taught at an alternative school targeting kids at risk for dropping out. I also had a weekly radio talk show called The Aquarian Review, which focused on interviews with community groups. I also created a drop-in center for kids who had been kicked out of Friendly House. We went to look for funding for the drop-in center that I ran. It’s pathetic to tell you this now, but the name of the center was The Uplift Center, which will tell you all you need to know about 1975—that I used terms like “uplift,” to uplift the people, like somehow I could do that. The Norton Company offered to fund the center independent of Friendly House (where I worked), and my center took all the kids that were kicked out of Friendly House. That’s who I had, and it was kind of an interesting place. But the Norton Company said one condition to getting this funding is that you need to stay. Well, I was going back to my senior year of college. Looking on it now, you wonder what would have happened if I stayed and ran the program…. I set up a lot of recreation programs when I was in Worcester at Friendly House, and when I got back to UMass Amherst, there was a summer job as the recreational director in Amherst. I took that job in my senior year, the summer of my senior year. I should mention that when I returned to UMass Amherst for my senior year, I took a course, Deviance, with Professor Anthony Harris, which I really liked. I must have done well in the class because he asked me if I was interested in being a Teaching Assistant (TA) in his undergraduate Data Analysis class the following semester. I had taken that class as a sophomore and got an A, so I was happy to help. I think I received work study money for this work. As an undergraduate TA, I got my first taste of life as an academic. The following semester, I convinced the instructor to make me a TA in a class I had never taken, Sociological Theory. Because 28 PERSPECTIVES I needed to finish my language requirement, I was going to stay an extra semester, which meant I had to meet the requirement of that year’s graduate class, and Theory was now a required course. The prof asked around about me and decided to let me be the TA. I co-led weekly discussion sections and graded all the exams along with a doctoral student. They even gave me an office. I liked the new status…. Killion pushed me to apply to grad schools in sociology, and he gave me a number of suggestions. I looked at a lot of places. This was 1976 now. The grad schools that my ego wanted me to apply to all had foreign language requirements. I looked at Harvard, all the highfalutin ones. As a state college kid, I wanted to prove myself—you have that chip on your shoulder—but I look at that as “No way I’m doing a language.” I completed my language requirement during my senior year (plus one extra semester) at UMass, taking Latin. I took intensive Latin five days a week, two semesters in a row to graduate. I did NOT want to take language again, and that definitely had an impact on where I applied. Ron: I want to go back to something you said a little bit ago, because if I understood it correctly, this goes to origins of your interest in doctorate work. You said, “I wanted to get a higher degree because those other people running programs had it.” Jim: At the time I was thinking master’s. I didn’t even know doctorate. I wanted legitimacy for my ideas. My ideas were there. Ron: But to run a program, not as an academic. Jim: Oh, no, to be the boss, right, to be in charge. And I did like the feeling of being a TA, and that also played a part in my decision. I guess I liked the idea of potentially being not just a TA, but also a prof, so both my UYA experience AND my time as an undergrad TA had an impact…. It is crazy that they allowed an undergrad to be a TA…. I do not think you would see that today. Ron: You settled on Rutgers? Jim: I went down to Rutgers, and I liked studying criminology…. I knew nothing about criminal justice. I took one course in deviance, and I like new stuff. I always have. So, for me, I was reading everything. I was stuck in some dumpy little place. I took six courses my first term. The grad students take three maybe, right? I took six. I felt like I was one of the only people reading, because the others had taken undergraduate [and] the first level of undergraduate criminal justice, it was all the same stuff, so they were kind of blowing it off. I read everything. Ron: At this point in terms of career, are you still thinking you’re going to get your degree and go out and run a program, or are you beginning to think maybe I’ll become an academic? Jim: What I found is I really don’t like working that much, but I do like being told I’m really good at something, and I was good as a student, and so I got that reinforcement. And especially as a working-class kid that meant something for me, so I kind of liked the status that was with it. Ron: Okay, so at some point, early on you said, “I’m in this for the Ph.D., and I think I’m going to be an academic”? Jim: A little bit of that. So, in one of my classes, in my first year there, and I’m on fellowship, I jumped on a grant, which ended up being the Newark Foot Patrol Study, led by George Kelling and Tony Pate. I, along with several other grad students, worked as a research assistant on that study for a few months. Our job was to count the number of people walking on the street in foot patrol versus non-foot patrol neighborhoods. After a month, they decided that it was a poor measure of fear of crime, so they dropped it from the final report. They asked me to stay on and work on another research project assessing women in policing. I was also in a class during my second semester with a guy who was the county planner, and he saw something in me in class. He said, you know, “Why don’t you come to work for Union County? I have a job. It’s called “Juvenile Justice Planner,” but you do all kinds of stuff. You just plan programs in juvenile justice. You like to write. It’s perfect for you.” So, I agreed to leave Rutgers, give up my fellowship, and go to work. Why? I took a job, as $4,500 versus $15,000 seemed like a lot of money for a kid from Malden, right? So, I took the $15,000. I went to work in Union County, which is in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and I did it for one year, and I still took classes. But now I had a full-time job, and I got to write a lot of grants, and this planning guy was in Mensa, and I know this because he had a little sign on his desk that said Mensa, and he was very smart. He was smart enough to have me write everything he did. And there was another guy that was the county chief of the police for the county. I even wrote his letters for him. So, my biggest grant I wrote there was the successful VOLUME 49, NUMBER 1proposal for a Union County regional morgue. So, in other words, I felt like I could write about anything. Ron: So, if I were to summarize this, it sounds like your interest was really sociology. You were thinking that, “Hey, I can run programs,” you know, “[run] community programs better than the people I’m watching, but I need to get my ticket punched to do that.” Jim: I had to be validated. But by this point, I was 24, and I liked evaluating these programs, not necessarily running them myself.… I had changed. Ron: So, at some point you’re saying “Okay, I’m going to get my Ph.D., and I’m going to apply for a faculty job.” Jim: Actually, there was a lot going on at that time. I left New Jersey in fall 1980. I had passed my comps, had my master’s degree, and taken all my classes—so nothing left but writing my dissertation … but my mother died in a car accident, and I returned to Malden to take care of my grandmother. I stayed there for several months [and] got a research job at Northeastern University working on a study on the death penalty. My grandmother went into a nursing home the following spring, and I applied for and got a job back in Jersey. I taught full time at Kean College of New Jersey from 1981-1983. Getting back to New Jersey got me motivated to finish my dissertation, which I did in spring 1983. Ron: Were you now thinking, “That’s the route I’m going. I’m going to be an academic, not an agency head.” Jim: Yeah. Basically, at that point I thought, “I can do this with my eyes closed.” I could do the research and the academics, right? You know, you go for the positive influences, and you stay away from the negative ones. So, that’s the reason I don’t write poetry. II.KEY INFLUENCES areas of interest for research, how the research is done, how it’s written up. In other words, who engagement with them or from a distance? Did you have a scholar in mind and say, “I want to be like Norval Morris.” Professional Development Network and Make a Difference Member-Only Discounts www.appa-net.org JOIN NOW BUY ONE GET ONE FREE JOIN APPA NOW The American Probation andParole Association (APPA) is excited toofferprofessionals whoarenew tothe association special 2 for 1 Membership pricing during its 50th Anniversary year. Two peoplewhohaveneverpreviouslybeenAPPAmemberscan purchase two one-year memberships for $50 total.Next >