Story Photos
 Department of Corrections client Uriah Byars, left, sits in his apartment living room while DOC officer Eric Morgan asks him questions about his progress and fellow officer Tracy Peters checks to see if he has any unapproved DVDs. Greg Ebersole / The Daily News
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Work never ends for DOC officers on patrol
Sunday, August 24, 2008 9:26 PM PDT
By Leslie Slape
Printable version
E-mail this articleIt’s late Tuesday afternoon in Longview. Eric Morgan and Tracy Peters of the state Department of Corrections are making a surprise visit to a woman on probation, a registered sex offender with a drug problem. “Something tells me she’s probably high right now,” Morgan says.
The woman’s mother allows them to enter her pleasant-looking home. Peters remains downstairs with the mother while Morgan walks up to the client’s bedroom and pounds on the door.
“Open the door!” he says.
The woman, 37, sits up in bed, her hair tousled, her eyes wide with bewilderment.
“Hi!” she says, a little too brightly. “I didn’t think I was going to see you ‘till tomorrow!”
“You’re seeing me today,” says Morgan.
One look confirms his hunch that she’s high. He handcuffs her.
“Why am I in trouble?” she asks, still wide-eyed. Under his grilling, she keeps insisting she’s been good. But he’s not letting her off the hook.
“When your face is broken out you need to be honest with me,” he says. Facial sores are a side-effect of using heroin and methamphetamine, he explains to a reporter.
She eventually confesses to shooting heroin Sunday night, then admits with a giggle that he’s right, it probably was Monday morning.
Peters does a pat-down search and helps the woman into her shoes. Then Morgan and Peters take her to the jail for a urinalysis. She tests positive for heroin and meth.
She is booked into jail on a no-bail DOC hold and will have a hearing in seven to 10 days.
“You get with a person and immediately recognize when they’re off-kilter,” says Morgan, who supervises about 45 clients on community custody with the state Department of Corrections. “Really, the challenge for us is to see that, so you can intervene before it gets out of control.”
Like parents
Morgan and Peters are among 17 community corrections officers who keep an eye on 1,200 to 1,300 offenders in community custody in Cowlitz County at any given time.
Morgan and Peters specialize in sex offenders. Specialized caseloads for other DOC officers include dangerous and mentally ill offenders and those serving a Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative.
Inmates have a court-ordered period of community supervision after release from state prison, during which time they must follow a rigid set of rules, such as abstaining from drugs or alcohol.
Most offenders report to the local DOC office once a month to update supervisors on their progress and be tested for substance abuse. Offenders who require tighter controls get at least one unannounced home visit a month.
Morgan and Peters behave toward their clients much like parents, alternately stern and kind. But instead of checking for dirt behind the ears or unmade beds, they’re looking for dirty movies, drug paraphernalia and lies. Sometimes they sound like parents, too.
A short leash
“Who do we need to concentrate on?” Morgan asks Uriah Byars when he learns that Byars hasn’t followed up on making an appointment.
“Me, sir,” Byars replies.
And when Morgan sees a scary-looking spiked ring fall to the floor, he scolds Byars for it.
“That ring I don’t want to see on your hand again,” he says. “If I see anything spike-related, you’re going to jail.”
“To some it might seem condescending,” Morgan later tells a reporter. “But I have to ask.”
Byars, 35, served eight months in prison for communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and was released four months ago. He’s been assessed as a Level 2 sex offender, at moderate risk of reoffending, and will be on supervision for a year.
He is one of nine sex offenders Morgan and Peters are visiting in the same Longview apartment complex. No children are allowed in the complex, which is one of the few Longview addresses that accepts sex offenders.
One of Byars’ neighbors, Mike Hassenger, is a Level 3 offender — the most likely to reoffend — who has been on supervision two years. He tells Morgan he’s being evicted for being short on his rent, and he doesn’t have a place to go. His room reeks of cigarettes and dogs.
This will be Hassenger’s second time to be registered as a transient sex offender. Morgan reminds him that not only will he have to check in with the sheriff’s office weekly, but he has to report to Morgan every day or risk going to jail.
Toeing the line
“A lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to the word ‘sex offender,’” Peters says. “But there are a lot of variables. Some of the folks we work with are kids who made mistakes. Some are violent predators. You adjust your supervision style to the circumstances.”
Most of the clients Morgan and Peters visit Tuesday are friendly and polite, and the offenders say they’re doing just fine on supervision.
“Ninety percent of our guys are doing well and want to stay that way,” Peters says.
“I’ve got an entire community keeping me in check,” says Robert Porter, adding he can’t get away with anything because of the publicity sex offenders get. “When I was first out of prison I was afraid of everybody, afraid I’d get beat up. Now I realized that as a Level 3, with the publicity, it’s safer for me and for the community.”
Lloyd Borst, a Level 2 offender, has had no violations during his year-and-a-half on supervision. He was convicted of molesting a child while he was addicted to meth.
“I’m done with it,” Borst says. “I’ve changed my life.”
His tiny apartment, which he shares with his dog, is neat and clean.
“This is my sanctuary,” he says. “I don’t want to go back to that life.”
A neighbor, Larry Roberts, is a Vietnam veteran who spent 14 years in prison for child rape. Since getting out three or four months ago, he has done a slick job of remodeling his apartment, making the tiny space highly efficient.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he says of the remodel. “I enjoy doing that.”
He says he appreciates the DOC’s help during his transition back to the outside world, including helping him get identification, because a lot of places won’t accept prison ID.
“It’s really a lot of help having people around me and support groups I can call,” he says.
He earned his GED in prison and took online courses through Edmonds Community College, where he earned a 3.8 GPA. He’s not allowed to have Internet access at home during supervision, but he uses a computer at WorkSource to brush up on his Excel skills.
Peters says Roberts “does things above and beyond what the DOC requires him to do.”
One arrest a day
After leaving the Longview apartment complex, Morgan and Peters have less success finding people at home. They go to a trailer park in Castle Rock, stop at a couple of places in South Kelso and then head to the Highlands. Suddenly Morgan spins the car around.
“I thought I recognized that guy in the alley,” he says. But after a short conversation, he knows he made a mistake.
“That’s what we call a knock and talk,” Morgan explains. “Sometimes individuals are hard to tell who they are. If they start to stutter or run when we ask if they’re (on DOC supervision), we know. This guy, as soon as he started to talk, I knew he wasn’t.”
“Probably half our arrests come from walking up on somebody,” Peters says. “Or we go to another offender’s house and they’re there.”
“Many times they will disperse very quickly,” Morgan says. “The ones who run fastest are probably DOC clients.”
Unlike police, DOC officers don’t have to establish probable cause before making an arrest, Morgan says.
The only arrest they make Tuesday is the woman who used heroin. She declined to be interviewed.
Morgan and Peters’ supervisor, Kevin Rentner, says DOC officers make on average one arrest a day.
“We work 24 hours a day, seven days a week and not get done,” Renter says. “It’s a fast-paced job.”
Often a DOC arrest will turn into something bigger, which is why DOC officers carry firearms.
“You never know what you’re going to walk into in this job,” Peters says. “Some situations I’ve walked into with Eric have been terrifying. ... You can have a routine home visit and catch someone in middle of drug deal.”
“Speaking of the state as a whole, sex offenders are truly the most challenging to supervise,” Morgan says. “Most officers get burnt out within a year because they require so much more attention.”
An officer has to be constantly skeptical and vigilant, he says.
“Sex offenders are more demanding, they’re more needy than other offenders,” he says. “They’re constantly requiring your attention. ... If an officer is not on his or her toes, they could very well miss a violation.”
But despite the stress, there is a lot of job satisfaction, Morgan and Peters say. He has been with the DOC since 1996, and she spent nine years working with juvenile offenders before moving to her current job a year and a half ago.
“Watching somebody get off supervision successfully, that’s a good feeling,” Peters says.
They rejoice in each gain their clients make: landing a job, buying a car, regaining custody of their kids, hitting a milestone of sobriety.
“Some things we take for granted are out of their reach,” Morgan says. “When they attain that, it’s a great joy for us all.”
“You almost wish you could throw a party for them,” Peters says.
KelsoWA wrote on Aug 24, 2008 12:11 AM:
Leslie Slape wrote on Aug 24, 2008 9:26 AM:
Amazed By Ignorance wrote on Aug 24, 2008 11:12 AM:
Sharkysmachine wrote on Aug 24, 2008 12:22 PM:
roudy russ wrote on Aug 24, 2008 1:24 PM:
DUH wrote on Aug 24, 2008 1:31 PM:
DUH wrote on Aug 24, 2008 1:32 PM:
Sharkysmachine wrote on Aug 24, 2008 1:43 PM:
Amazed By Ignorance wrote on Aug 24, 2008 1:52 PM:
Atrucker wrote on Aug 24, 2008 3:18 PM:
You are told about a job that is being done and ya.ll come in here and bash each other. It seems ya need to be arrested by the manners cops . "
DUH wrote on Aug 24, 2008 3:25 PM:
http://www.co.cowlitz.wa.us/sheriff/rso/default.htm "
berryjewels wrote on Aug 24, 2008 3:38 PM:
DUH wrote on Aug 24, 2008 4:27 PM:
Sharkysmachine wrote on Aug 24, 2008 4:40 PM:
berryjewels wrote on Aug 24, 2008 5:00 PM:
SPARROW wrote on Aug 24, 2008 5:50 PM:
Sharkysmachine wrote on Aug 24, 2008 7:05 PM:
Tired of it wrote on Aug 24, 2008 7:59 PM:
Holding people accountable of their crimes is the least we can do. The problem is they are not afaid of the punishment they get.So give em more! "
My Kids Mom wrote on Aug 24, 2008 8:10 PM:
LongviewFam wrote on Aug 24, 2008 9:12 PM:
RV wrote on Aug 24, 2008 10:58 PM:
owlcreekcats wrote on Aug 25, 2008 8:06 AM:
cynic wrote on Aug 25, 2008 9:47 AM:
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