After 37 years with the Bowie County Adult Probation Office, Chief Probation Officer Jack Pappas said he is retiring with some difficulty, but with some ease, too.
"It's a job where you really get a chance to help people, but I have a family and kids as well as grandkids and I think it's time for the younger ones in the office to take over."
Terri Giles, the office's assistant chief probation officer, said that in the 32 years she's worked with Pappas, she could never really recall any occasion when Jack wanted to leave.
"I've never seen anyone enjoy the job like Jack has," Giles said. "It's a job where you get a chance to save lives and we all have a common goal to help protect the community."
Raised in Texarkana, Texas, Pappas graduated from Texas High School, Class of 1972, before attending Texarkana College for two years. He then transferred to North Texas State University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1976.
Shortly after finishing college, Pappas came back to Texarkana to work for the Texarkana Shelter Workshop Center for three years. There he conducted vocational evaluations of clientele.
After leaving the center in 1979, Pappas briefly did some farming and ranching, along with some house building in addition to helping his parents with their restaurant, before going to work for the county's Adult Probation Office as a probation officer in September 1980.
"I knew some of the people who were already working there, and the job fit with my college degree," Pappas said. "It was also a day job that gave me the chance to still go out and farm and ranch."
At the time, the city's old federal court building at 321 W. Fourth St. ( now the Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council building) housed the county's adult probation office. It moved to the second floor of the Bi-State Justice center when the center opened in October 1985.
Like all probation officers, Pappas spent his first years serving warrants, making sure both felony and misdemeanor adult offenders kept the terms of their probation as he visited their homes and workplaces. He eventually was promoted to assistant chief probation officer in 1987 and finally to chief probation officer in 2003.
Pappas saw the number of probation cases climb throughout the 1980s and 1990s, since the criminal justice system focused more on offender punishment than on treatment and rehabilitation, he said. This led to higher rates of criminal recidivism, particularly for drug offenders.
"At that time, treatment and rehabilitation resources were pretty limited," Pappas said. "The judicial system was more punishment oriented than substance abuse rehabilitation oriented. Drug testing wasn't even happening until about 1984. This made recidivism a problem."
During the 1980s and 1990s, the state's prison system also became overcrowded.
"Some offenders who were being sentenced to 10 years were only serving 10 months because of prison overcrowding" said Terri Giles, the county's assistant chief probation officer.
However, from 2005 to 2007, the state, in addition to building more prisons, started to focus more on offender rehabilitation and treatment programs, Pappas said.
The county's efforts to turn its former juvenile detention center into a statewide women's substance abuse recovery center in 2008 is an example of the state's change of focus-one which started to help reduce the adult probation case overload, Pappas said.
Giles agreed.
"When I first got here in 1985, it wasn't unusual to have 30 people put on adult probation in one day; now it's about half that number," she said.
In addition to rehabilitation and treatment programs, Pappas said the state's implementation of the drug court program, starting in 2001, offered one of the most positive changes in the judicial system during his 37 years in adult probation.
"Getting drug court started made a major difference, because this brought in a team approach to rehabilitation," Pappas said. "Now we had judges, prosecutors, rehabilitation counselors, defense attorneys and probation officers all involved in the rehabilitation process."
Besides drug court, the women's recovery center and substance abuse treatment programs, the county also started a sex offender program and day reporting center and had help from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facility.
SAFPF provides services to qualified offenders identified as needing substance abuse treatment. The treatment is a six- to-nine-month in-prison program, followed by thee months of residential aftercare inside a transitional treatment center. Offenders are sentence to a SAFPF by a judge as a condition of community supervision in lieu of prison.
Along with felony and misdemeanor criminal cases, the adult probation office also handles civil cases involving child support.
Even though the change in emphasis from punishment to offender rehabilitation and treatment has helped bring down the number of probation cases, Pappas said the office's employee turnover rate remains high owing to the stress of dealing with people from wide-ranging and diverse backgrounds.
"Probation is sort of like law enforcement, you have to learn how to figure people out and find the best resources for the probation population," Pappas said. "You also have to care about both the public and the offenders. It's the kind of job that you will either love it or you will hate it."
Despite the reduced caseload, Giles said that since she started in 1985, the number of county probation officers has more than doubled-going from nine to 20 in the last 32 years. More probation officers are needed for the specialty areas the office now has, such as sexual offense, substance abuse and mental health.
Pappas said he is glad that county's adult probation office has had room to grow inside the Bi-State Justice Center-especially after the Arkansas Department of Correction withdrew from center's second floor in 2003. This left the probation office about 12,000 extra square feet to grow, particularly in office space, lab testing space and rehabilitation classroom space.
"Jack has been amazing with the amount of research he has conducted to keep the county's drug and mental health treatment programs up to date," Giles said.
"Thanks to Jack, we have exactly the same great programs that Dallas would have to offer."
The county will hold a reception for Pappas at 3 p.m. Friday on the second floor inside the TRAHC Building at 321 W. Fourth St.
For more information, call the probation office at 903-798-3052.