To become a parole officer requires a great deal of training and experience dealing with serious offenders, as well as not so serious ones. Basically a parole officer is an individual whose job is to supervise criminal offenders that have been placed on probation, as well as ex prisoners who need to complete a sentence ordered by the parole-board judge. Some of the duties assigned to a parole officer would include having links to a wide variety of different social service institution, as their main job would be to help these ex-prisoners and rehabilitated criminals to get a proper education, find a suitable job and a place to live, as well as to receive regular counseling from an experienced professional.

 When you become a parole officer, you will usually have the option of working with either adult offenders or with juvenile offenders exclusively, depending on your expertise, training and preference. Parole officers generally handle quite a large amount of cases at any given time, sometimes reaching a figure of up to three hundred separate cases at once. You will generally visit the various offenders in their residences or even at their workplace to check up on them and see where you might be bale to give some assistance, as well as to write reports on each and every individual on an regular basis until their parole time is up.

 If you have studied and then become a parole officer, it will be your job to not only write reports on various offenders, but also to testify in a court of law, so as to provide the judge with sufficient information to decide upon a sentence for the offender in question or sometimes it is a court session consisting of the parole board, and you will need to give your opinion on whether or not the offender is sufficiently rehabilitated to be allowed to go free. Another duty of a parole officer would be to assume any investigations that may be required upon the violation of his or her parole conditions by an offender.

 To become a parole officer, you will need to complete bachelor’s degree in social work, psychology or criminal justice, which will take you four years to finish. For a better resume, you should also get your master’s degree after sitting for your bachelor’s, which many experienced parole officers usually do. After completing your degree, you will go through a training period of about six months, which will put you in a position to get a permanent position as a parole officer. After you have at least two years of experience as a parole officer, you may be promoted to a federal officer or a supervisor.

 The basic requirements to become a parole officer are that you be a citizen of the United States and that you are over the age of twenty, not to mention that you have no prior convictions. You will obviously need your bachelor’s degree and will also have to pass a written and oral test, as well as a psychological and physical examination.