Flores-Vasquez 1

Jennifer Flores-Vasquez
English 1A/32475
Professor Adler
April 15, 2015
The Inside of Becoming a Juvenile Probation Officer
An Ethnographic Study of Juvenile Probation Officer Discourse Community. The
profession of a Juvenile Probation Officer is one of the most useful provided supervision
profession that exists in todays world. It is a profession that provide supervision and monitoring
youth under the jurisdiction of the court to ensure that youth on probation comply with all court
orders. According to The Concept of Discourse Community, by educator and researcher John
Swales, provides six characteristics as a definitive definition of a discourse community. A
discourse community has a broadly set of common public goals.mechanism of
intercommunication among its members.uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to
provide information and feedback utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the
communicative furtherance of its aimshas acquired some specific lexisand threshold level of
members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.(471-473) Juvenile
Probation Officer deals with trouble youth with low-risk, first-time offenders, and probation
officers often decides against a formal court proceeding in favor of a diversion program with
community service. Also, considered as juvenile correctional treatment specialists, work
exclusively with adolescents who have been convicted of a crime and put on probation, rather

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than being sentenced to jail time. Juvenile probation officers also work with underage individuals
who have already served time in jail and are on parole to guide them in the right direction.
The mission of Juvenile Probation Officer and Detention Services is to support a juvenile
justice system that ensures public protection from further acts of juvenile delinquency, and
assists in the accountability and rehabilitative needs of youthful offenders. One discourse
community characteristics that Juvenile Probation Officers is to set a common public goals is to
hold the children charged with the commission of delinquent acts, along with protecting the
community through close supervision of the juvenile offender and finally to increase the
competency levels of juvenile offenders through different activities and educational programs
that address youth with basic competency related skills such as anger management and decision
making that would guide them in the right direction.
In Juvenile Probation Officer Discourse emphasis is put on two major skills,
communication and writing. Juvenile Probation officers must be able to effectively interact and
communicate with a wide range of people. Excellent communication skills are required in this
community because not only does she or he have to listen but understand court orders about
monitoring the offenders activities. The juvenile probation officer must understand the court
orders and then be able to help the offender understand what will be expected during his or her
probation terms. In court, the probation officer must be able to communicate recommendations
on a problem terms for the offender on whats right from wrong. Becoming a master in the
juvenile probation community means knowing legal terms and diction and how to apply to each
term. Along with spoken language comes written with the profession. Juvenile probation officers
interpret training materials and write detailed reports on a regular basis. Juvenile Probation

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officers may also write notes in a daybooks to remind themselves of upcoming meetings and
court dates, a brief e-mail and notes to co-workers and colleagues may be used to request or give
certain information, case management notes are recorded to show meeting events and their
outcomes that the probation officer has accomplished, observations about progress that has been
made, matter for follow-up and even information such as offenders health problems, living
conditions, and other sufficient details that comes along with writing letters to offenders, their
parents, co-workers. Rehabilitation plans and finally a variety of sentencing, presentencing, risk
management, progress and classification reports meaning as essential skills. So as you can tell,
language is a major component in this Discourse Community. Without the ability of having
proper skills, one could easily be denied from the job, which pushes them farther away from
joining the juvenile probation officer discourse community experiences.
In fact, being human it is only natural that each of people are acquire at the very least one
initial discourse through primary socialization early in life from home and peers that are brought
up with. Primary Discourse is the one that is first used to make sense of the world and to
interact with others (Gee 21-23). It involves casual social interaction in which is normally found
when talking with family and close friends. Secondary Discourses are beyond the family and
immediate peer groups which may be local stores, churches, schools, community groups, state,
national businesses, agencies, and organizations(Gee 22-23). Juvenile Probation Officer is
example of secondary Discourse communities. This is because this community is work related
that takes them out of their close kit relationships with their families and friends but rather
interact with everyone in the community.

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So how does one acquire a Discourse? It turns out that much that is claimed,
controversially, to be true of second language acquisition or socially situated cognition is, in fact,
more obviously true of the acquisition of Discourses(Gee 22-23). Discourses are not mastered
by overt instruction (even less so than languages, and hardly anyone every fluently acquired a
second language sitting in a classroom), but by enculturation (apprenticeship) into social
practices through scaffold and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the
Discourse (Gee 23). This means that one becomes a part of a Discourse by learning, watching
and being around those who have mastered the given Discourse with success. The individual
learns to be part of the group culture through experience, observation, and instructions followed
by its manual guidelines.
So, how does one become part of Juvenile Probation Officer Discourse Community? In
order to, first become part of a community one should know its background information and
details. In this case one should know the job description of a juvenile probation officer and ask
themselves whether they would be interested working in the field with troubled youth. Juvenile
Probation officers supervise people who have been placed on probation. These people have been
convicted of a crime but instead of being sent to prison juveniles are given a second chance to
stay out of trouble and meet certain requirements by the court order. Juvenile Probation Officers
work to ensure that the offender is not a danger to the community and to help them throughout
their rehabilitation. Duties of an officer include evaluating offenders to determine the best course
of treatments, providing offenders with resources to aid in rehabilitation, discuss treatment
options with offenders, arrange treatment options with offenders, supervise offenders, monitoring
their progress, and conduct meetings with offenders as well as friends and families;

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finally write a report on the progress of the offenders to make sure they go towards the right
direction on making their choices. These duties tie in with being in a Discourse Community of a
probation officer in facts that you must first learn about the job and all its entails and also being
able to follow the instructions with the guidelines set by the person in charge. For example, like
Gee states, in order to become part of a community one must learn by observation and educating
ourselves on a given Discourse.
In order to achieve the status of a juvenile probation officer a bachelors degree in social
work. Criminal justice, or psychology is required. Most probation officers must complete a
training program sponsored by their state government or federal government, after which they
must pass a certification test along with work as trainees or on a probationary period for up to
one year before being offered a permanent position within that career and discourse community.
Juvenile Probation Officers are given a chance to shadow and observe the job before there are
being put into the field. Having the chance to work as a trainee allows them to pick up on the
values, beliefs, attitudes, and many more characteristics of the Discourse community of the
juvenile probation officer system.

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Work Cited
Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Department of Labor. Occupational Outlook Handbook. 20142015 Edition. Juvenile Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/community-and-social-service/probation-officers-andcorrectional-treatment-specialists.htm#tab-2
James Paul Gee. What is Literacy? Journal of Education, Volume 171 Number 1, 1989: 18-25.
Print.
Michael A. Jones. Pamela A.Clark. Ronald J. Quiros. Juvenile Probation and Mentoring the
Referral Stage. http://www.mentoring.org/images/uploads/OJJDP_Profile
%206_single.pdf
Web courses at UCF. By Instructure. Web. 3 March. 2015
https://webcourses.ucf.edu/courses/984277/pages/what-is-a-discourse-community