Timothy Coleman
Senior Seminar
Reaction Paper
My assignment was to interview two human services/criminal justice professionals, one from the public sector and one from the non or for profit sector. This assignment gave me the opportunity to actually learn more about my field from people with experience. According to one of my interviewees the class setting can only teach a person so much, hands –on is what’s needed. I had the opportunity to interview a probation officer for Pulaski county and a Criminal defense attorney.
First person I interviewed was Mr. Paul Woods, probation officer. Mr. Woods has been in his field for 20 years and loves the opportunity to help the young people. His education came from Wiley College. He later began to get many certificates in various fields even mental health. Mr. Woods job functions include: Managing various case loads of delinquents, Accessing services for delinquents, ensuring they attend school, exercising random drug screens for some, and ensuring the family is involved in the child’s life. Some of the rewarding attributes of the field is seeing the delinquent graduate high school and go off to a new rehabilitated life. The purpose of his job is to prevent and rehabilitate the delinquent. Some of the challenges include Sub-culture and its gang like behavior. The mental challenge of the delinquent is greatly influenced of our young African American males into thinking gang life is the way to go. Woods went on to say that most of the things he learned in his book, although helped, was not part of his experiences in the field. Woods opinion is that the writers of our books don’t actually experience some of the things they write about but sends out speculators to gather information. Finally, I asked Woods what advice would he give to a college student who is interested in working for his agency? Woods replied, get some type of experience in the environment by getting an internship. Many people seem to think they...