History 1957 to 1960

CHAPTER III

1957-1960: NATIONAL RECOGNITION, CONSULTATIVE STATUS AND ADDITIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS

 

"The Federal Probation Officers Association is active on a wide variety of fronts, gaining recognition as an organization dedicated to the high ideals of professionalism. It does not seek, nor does it pretend to administer the functions of the Federal Probation System, for that is the responsibility of the individual U. S. District Courts with the strong and able support of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. The Association is a dynamic, vital adjunct."
 -Walter Evans

In one of its adjunct activities, referred to by Walter Evans, the Association published in 1957, a brochure entitled "Professional Standards Endorsed by the Federal Probation Officers Association." The work on this important brochure began during 1956 through William C. 'Buddy" Nau and his Professional Standards Committee including Glenn McFarland (NY/N); Albert Wahl (CA/N), California; Wayne Keyser (IL/N) and Paul L. Brown (AR/E). The standards included the full range of responsibilities of Federal Probation Officers, the objectives of probation and parole, recommended workloads and the qualifications for appointment. So well was the brochure received that it was printed by the Administrative Office of the U. S. Courts and widely distributed to all federal and many state probation and parole agencies. Not only did the brochure have intrinsic value but it also aided the enhancement of Federal Probation's public image.
On January 1, 1957 the incumbent national officers, having been re-elected two months before, began their second term. Just two weeks later, meeting at their national board meeting, members discussed a number of important issues including salary inequities, personnel, office space and parking. They listened as Glenn C. Petty, Youth Division Executive of the then Board of Parole, requested the Association's assistance in revising parole procedures for youth offenders. At the conclusion of the meeting the members enthusiastically agreed to assist the Board of Parole. Along other lines, they proposed that the Probation Division establish five regional coordinators for better communication and work with the field and called for refresher courses to be given at the Chicago Training Center, which, up to this time, only provided orientation training.[i]
Following the meeting the National Board met with Chief Justice Earl Warren and presented him with a scroll in recognition of his support of the Federal Probation Officers Association. Later that evening the members met informally at the home of Lewis Grout, formerly the Chief Probation Officer in Kansas City and later Acting Chief of Probation during World War II, now a member of the Board of Parole. Also visiting at the Grouts' with the Association were Scovel Richardson, Chairman of the Parole Board, William Howland, a Parole Board member and James C. Bennett, Director of the Bureau of Prisons. These informal meetings, reflecting the mutual respect between the criminal justice community and the Association, would later become more formalized and Parole Board and Bureau of Prisons leadership would attend the Association's Executive Board official sessions.
The year 1957 brought the first commercially printed issue of the Association's Newsletter with a new editor, William C. "Buddy' Nau (SC/W) replacing Arch Sayler, the letter's editor for two and a half years. From the beginning the letter kept the field aware of national developments and pending legislation and gradually increased its news to include activities of various probation offices, promotions, new appointments, transfers and items of general interest.
During 1957 President Doyle and Secretary-Treasurer Sayler were active on a number of fronts in behalf of the Association's membership. Richard Doyle was in contact with Senator Olin D. Johnston (D-SC), Chairman of the Senate Post Office and Civil Service Committee in an attempt to include U.S. Probation Officers under the hazardous duty protection statute, to increase the retirement rate formula from 2% to 2-1/2% and to have Congressional acceptance of minimum standards in the appointment of probation officers. Arch Sayler, meanwhile, was in touch with Chief Judge John Biggs, Chairman of the Judicial Conference Committee on Supporting Personnel, requesting upgrades for Chief Clerks and Chief Probation Officers and recommending again that the Probation Division be regionalized into five units. 
(Visits to Congress extended to the earliest days of the Association and even before. Richard Chappell wrote of one such incident: 'I recall visiting a congressman who headed the appropriations committee of the Lower House to discuss, informally, our low pay scale. He expressed the view that probation officers, like preachers, should work for the love of humanity and not for the money. It occurred to me that that might apply equally well to congressmen but I did not say so.") [ii]
Finally, in response to Glenn Petty's request, a Special Committee To Assist The Youth Division Executive was formed. Consisting of Marshall McKinney, Chairman, together with John Brennan (MO/E) and Ken Beighle, the committee would study and later make recommendations to the Board of Parole in handling youths under their jurisdiction.
In keeping with its goal to foster professionalism in the corrections field, the Executive Board, at its January 10, 1958 meeting in Chicago, unanimously resolved to establish a National Corrections Institute. The purposes of such an institute within the correctional field were to enhance training, establish professional standards, and promote research and public relations. It was anticipated that the institute would offer refresher and advanced training in a university setting and would operate forty weeks during the year. Toward this end Association members met during May 1958 in Miami, Florida with their colleagues in the National Probation and Parole Association (NPPA). One year later, Arch Sayler, as Chairman of the FPOA Committee for a "National Academy for the Study and Treatment of Crime and Delinquency", presented the Executive Board's resolution at the NPPA's meeting in Swampscott, Massachusetts. In August 1960, the NPPA which was reorganized into the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, established a subcommittee within its Professional Council. This subcommittee was composed of FPOA representatives Ben Meeker and Arch Sayler in addition to Russell 0. Oswald, Chairman of the New York State Board of Parole, Randolph E. Wise, Philadelphia Commissioner of Welfare, Carroll R. Minor, a former U.S. Probation Officer and Willis Thomas of the NCCD staff. Ultimately, in 1961, the NCCD received a $363,000 grant from the National Institute for Mental Health to establish a National Research And Information Center on crime and delinquency, a grant which culminated the work of the FPOA and NCCD members toward a national center.
As the nineteen fifties were ending, the efforts of the Federal Probation Officers Association were spreading out on a variety of fronts. Louis Sharp, Chief of Probation, for example, asked the Executive Board at its October 1959 meeting in Washington, D. C., to submit comparative salary scales in similar fields for the purpose of reclassification and salary increases. The Association endorsed GS 10-11-12 grade levels for probation officers, up to GS 15 for Chiefs in large cities and an upgrading for all clerks.[iii] Sharp agreed with the idea of across-the-board upgrading and suggested a letter-writing campaign to Congressional representatives. (In 1959 certain FPOA letter-writing campaigns resulted in every member of the 86th Congress receiving one or more communications from Association members).
The year 1959 saw the establishment of an Ad Hoc Committee consisting of Charles Hosner (MI/E), Chairman, and Ben Meeker to study the policies of various states regarding the deprivation of certain legal rights following a felony conviction. An agreement was reached between the Association and Southern Illinois University's Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency and Corrections to compile the data. Hosner, through federal probation officers in all states, gathered the statutes and compiled them, which the University, through a grant and research assistants, reviewed. The fruits of this work were published by the Administrative Office of the U. S. Courts in November 1960 in booklet form. That booklet enumerated the many rights lost in all states following a conviction together with the remedies available at the time for a restoration of those rights.
The later nineteen-fifties also witnessed the addition of a sixth area conference, thus increasing the number of regional vice-presidents from five to six (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Great Lakes, Central States, Western). An Assistant Editor, Hayward W. Hudson of Greenville, South Carolina, was added to the Newsletter staff and an increase in the national dues was finally approved by the membership to meet the Association's costs. One of the major expenses involved national board meetings. While it was originally anticipated that one meeting per year would be sufficient, it was decided in 1958 that two were necessary to discuss and plan in any given year. (And while the Board initially only met for one day at its yearly meeting, it has increased to meeting for a week at a time, twice a year, to be able to adequately address the many issues before it).
Marshall McKinney was president of the Association as the nineteen- fifties ended and the nineteen-sixties began. He presided over a Board that was no less active than the two preceding his. In February 1960 Logan Webster and his Economics Committee completed a detailed study of salaries of other federal law enforcement personnel and U.S. Attorneys salaries concerning pay comparability. In September 1960 Al Wahl and the Professional Standards Committee submitted a Code of Ethics for Federal Probation Officers which has been in use since. In fact, shortly after the Executive Board approved the Code, the Chief of the Probation Division urged that it be used at the swearing-in of all U. S. Probation Officers. The Professional Standards Committee, at about this same time, had developed two other ideas which were favorably received by the Director of the Administrative Office. These included paid stipends for student trainees and the necessity for a researcher in the Court system. The Director of the National Training Center in Chicago also accepted a suggestion of the Professional Standards Committee that the Committee meet with the Center on a regular basis to provide input.
When, during the September 1960 Executive Board meeting, the Association recommended that the Probation Division develop an adequate workload formula, Division Chief Louis Sharp threw the task back to the FPOA. Several months later, the Association sponsored a workload measurement study conducted by Dr. Daniel Glasser of the University of Illinois.
During this same meeting the Board of Parole and Division of Probation accepted an FPOA suggestion that regional meetings would be held, to include the Bureau of Prisons, to increase communication between the three bodies. Also, as a means to enhance communication between the Probation Division and the field, the FPOA Newsletter began a 'Letter From the Chief" column in 1960.
As 1960 ended, the Administrative Office of the U. S. Courts distributed laminated car signs for field officers which the Association had long sought.