of the court can be mitigated by good case work later on, while a poor
probation officer may nullify the effects of the wisest judicial
decision ever made.

The importance of having enough probation officers to handle the work of
the court has already been touched upon. An overworked officer is
perforce an inefficient officer. He has usually to spend at least half
his time in the court and attending to the clerical end of his job. From
50 to 60 cases is probably all that one probation officer can be
expected to handle thoroughly at one time, if, as is to be hoped, he is
required to make careful preliminary investigations to be presented to
the judge _before_ the trial.

In training and in equipment for the job, probation officers should be
the equals of case workers in private agencies. Examinations for
probation officers ought to be conducted by social workers of skill and
high standards. A few months of cramming at a civil service school, or a
few weeks of volunteer visiting with some case working agency, should
not suffice to enable candidates to pass the examinations. The standards
should be high enough and the salaries sufficiently attractive to draw
into this field people who have successfully completed their
apprenticeship in the art of case work. Only then can the status of the
probation officer be raised to what it should be in the court itself.
The relation of the probation officer to the judge ought to be exactly
like the relation of the medical social worker to the physician--that of
a person acting under his direction in a general way, but with a special
contribution to make to the treatment of the case and with a recognized
standing as an expert in his own particular field.

FOOTNOTES: