Tennessee Newspaper Reported Half the Story & Hurt Friend's Career

With a few noticeable exceptions, getting your name in the paper is a good thing. However, in my job it is generally a bad thing. Personally, most of us try avoiding it. I have one co-worker who got her name in the paper in a positive way several times. Another manager here has been mentioned several times positively as well. Mostly, though, having them use your name is bad.

The only two times I've been mentioned in the paper, my name was not used, just the title "parole officer" and the title "probation officer." Both items were good; I had assisted law enforcement with information and facilitated a search of residence when they might not have been able to get a warrant. I was also able to allow them to lock up and hold both offenders without bond by using the items found and new charges as violations for warrants.

Recently, a co-worker received some semi-anonymous news coverage that was not good. The story in the paper reported that a sex offender on probation had been working in a warehouse that was across the street from an elementary school. The business personnel manager reported that she had no idea the worker was a registered sex offender or convicted felon. Apparently a co-worker had seen his picture on the Internet and reported him to the police. Of course, he was arrested and fired. The paper mentioned that the sex offender stated his probation officer knew he worked there and had said it would be OK.

My co-worker was given a written reprimand that will stay on his record for 2 years. Another will result in him being fired. He has since moved from field supervision to report writing.

What the paper didn't report was this: The organization the man worked for had several locations including 2 warehouses. The man was originally hired to work in the other warehouse which was not anywhere near a prohibited area. The personnel manager was very aware of the man's status having been informed by the man, the probation officer, and the probation officer's manager both of the man's sex offense and his work restrictions. The man was transferred to the new location and worked there for a month before reporting the change, although he was supposed to report it within 48 hours. When the probation officer discovered the new employment situation, he informed both the offender and the business that the man could not work at that location and he had to stop immediately.

Up to this point the officer is covered, but here he makes two mistakes. First, he should have violated the sex offender for failing to report the change.

But the personnel manager asked if she could leave the man on the job for 5 days to train someone else on the job and to give her time to shuffle people to make room for the offender at another location. The officer made his second mistake by agreeing. Two days later the man was arrested.

Now the newspaper article makes it seem like the probation officer wasn't doing his job. It also makes the company seem like a clever sex offender fooled it. Neither thing was true. The personnel manager knew exactly what was going on. The probation officer made his mistakes by trying to be a nice guy and it bit him on the hand. He tried to not file charges on his offender and he tried to work with the company to help them out. He shouldn't have tried this because in our current situation, sex offenders are a hot topic and are dealt with in a "knee jerk" type of reaction. You can't afford to be a nice guy if you want to keep your job, because no one will back you up when the accusations start flying.