ON PROBATION

Yet the line outside the door begins forming an hour before the office opens.

Everybody wants to be first.

Sign your name.

Check in.

See your probation officer.

"Change your address.

"Change your phone number.

"Find a job yet?

"Ok you can go.

"Pay the $50 monthly fee at the window.

And so I am done for another month.

The Office of Adult Probation in Lawrence County.

I report once a month until February 4, 2011. It is part of my sentence for pleading guilty to conflict of interest charges two years ago.

So I stand with the other men and women, many of them not much past 18 years old - who report, sometimes once a week - and listen to their stories and we try to keep warm until the office opens.

Drugs.

Robbery.

Alcohol abuse.

Assault.

A whole menagerie of criminal activities that makes me wonder what - if anything - the probation office is doing to help these people change their lives.

Two older gentlemen ride their bikes to the office because neither can afford a car.

One rides almost six miles.

I expect it can become mighty cold riding a bike six miles in sub-30 degree weather.

Others get rides from friends or family. Others take the bus - if they can afford the fare.

All of them talk about what they have done and how they want to stop committing crimes and start over with a clean slate.

One says: "I don't want to do drugs, but I can't help myself."

I want to suggest counseling, but I figure he already knows about that. So I simply stand and wait in line.

Most of the people are young men and women - barely the age of 18.

"My father used to beat the heck outta me," another tells us. "Coat hangers, electrical cords, broom handles, anything he could get his hands on. I bled through my pants many times.

"It used to hurt like hell."

By the tone of his voice and the glaze in his eyes, you can tell it still does.

Another guy, who's probably 20, hopes he gets in and out quickly so he can get to work on time.
He came late so he's pretty far back in the line.

However, he was able to get a job and he says he is trying to turn his life around.

Drugs ("Been clean for seven months.")

Alcohol ("Haven't had a drink for almost a year.")

For obvious reasons it's not as easy as it sounds. But he talks about his recovery with pride in his voice. Not may are able to achieve what he has.

He should be proud.

Criminal records - and I have one - make it difficult to find a job. Employers never tell you they are not going to hire you for that record, but it's obvious it makes a difference.

Some of the guys in line with me are foul-mouthed and cynical. One just sold his flat-screen television for a bottle of oxycontin. He is hoping he does not have to take a urine test today. For some reason I am hoping the same thing for him.

One or two are silent - one even prays the rosary.

I suspect he believes as I do, that God has a plan for us, there is a reason for everything, and prayer is what keeps us strong.

I have been coming to probation for 25 months - the first six I spent on house arrest.

I pray constantly every day that God will protect me and show me His perfect will for my life.

Maybe, in some ways he has because I have learned a great deal from my experience with the legal system. The greatest lesson, however, is that the people I report with - most of them poor and uneducated - are the people Jesus talks about in the scriptures when he asks his apostles how they treated the poor, the weak, the elderly and those in prison.

Face it; society believes that these people are the dregs of humanity.

"Lock 'em up and throw away the key."

They have no idea that drug addiction and alcoholism are illnesses and need to be treated as such. Or
maybe they do have an idea, but they just don't care.

God, however, has a different take on things.

Part of my morning prayer is for the people I meet at probation. I ask God to bless them, to look kindly upon them, to save them from their sins.

I finally get to the window, give my name, pay my money and am told my probation officer does not need to see me this month.

So I will come back on the first day of April. I will stand in line with most of the same people I stood with in March. People who are dealing with the same struggles, just looking for a little help, so they can rebuild their lives.

I will pray that they find it.