The Supreme Judicial Court is currently reviewing the recommendations in the
"Action Plan for Reform and Renewal of Probation Department Hiring and Promotion
Practices," which was delivered to the Court on February 10, 2011, by the SJC's
Task Force, chaired by former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger.
"The Task Force, under Attorney Harshbarger's leadership, has produced a
thorough, first rate report in a very limited time frame," said Chief Justice
Roderick L. Ireland. "I appreciate the hard work and dedication of the Task
Force members."
The comprehensive report calls for immediate action by the Court and
Legislature to restore the integrity in the hiring and promotion practices in
the Probation Department. The Action Plan outlines a detailed and
substantive series of steps that the Task Force believes will transform the
Probation Department's formerly corrupted hiring process into a national
model.
The action steps include the following:
Adoption of seven nationally recognized and proven principles for recruiting,
hiring and promoting high quality Probation Officers;
- Implementation of a plan for recruiting, hiring and retaining Chief
Probation Officers of proven quality in positions that now are vacant or
filled by Acting Chiefs;
- Installation of an application tracking system that records all phases of
the application process, all actions taken by those involved in hiring and
promotion of an applicant and all recommendations and references any applicant
receives;
- Prompt restoration of managerial controls that were taken away from the
Chief Justice for Administration and Management in 2002;
- Prompt review of staffing levels in the Probation Department to insure
that that the staff is appropriate for the number of cases the Department is
handling and that workloads are appropriately distributed; and
- Oversight of Probation hiring and promotion by an outside entity for the
next two years with periodic public reports of the reforms being implemented
in the Department and the results of such reforms.
The Task Force stated that a civil service approach to Probation hiring and
promotion would not achieve the necessary reforms and that the steps outlined in
the Action Plan were practical, cost-effective and long overdue. It also
noted that several of its recommendations had achieved broad consensus among
various groups that had offered suggestions for Probation reform.
Urging the Court to seize the opportunity for reform and to pursue that
opportunity relentlessly until transformation of the hiring and promotion
process was accomplished, the Task Force stated that all distraction from
renewal and reform -- relocation or consolidation of the Probation
Department, institutional barriers or simple inertia -- must give way to
the restorative steps set out in the Action Plan. The Task Force
emphasized that restoration of integrity and public confidence in the Probation
Department demand intense and urgent focus.
Last December the Supreme Judicial Court established the Task Force to
undertake a comprehensive review of the hiring and promotion practices in the
Judicial Branch in the wake of the findings of corruption and systemic abuse in
the hiring and promotion practices of the Probation Department documented in the
report of Independent Counsel Paul Ware. The Justices charged the Task
Force to "make recommendations designed to ensure a fair system with transparent
procedures in which the qualifications of an applicant are the sole criterion on
hiring and promotion."
The Task Force presented
Initial Recommendations to the Court on January 19, 2011, which included the
recommendation that Dr. Ronald P. Corbett, Jr., be appointed the Acting
Commissioner of Probation for a two-year period. That recommendation was
promptly adopted by the Court. Chief Justice Mulligan appointed Dr. Corbett as
Acting Probation Commissioner for a two-year term on January 21, 2011. Former
Commissioner John J. O'Brien resigned on December 31, 2010.
On February 10, 2011, the Task Force delivered
the final report with respect to the Probation Department. The members
are now undertaking the other part of their mandate to review and make
recommendations of the hiring and promotion practices in the Judicial
Branch.
The Task Force members are Scott Harshbarger, Chair; Stephen Crosby, Kate
Donovan, Ruth Ellen Fitch, Michael Keating, Bill Leahy, Hon. James McHugh, Susan
Prosnitz, Harry Spence, and Steven Wright.