Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Chuck, the training advisor. Here’s what I tell everyone on their first day. First, the real world is different from what you’ve been told in college classes. Politicians promise the public that they will get tough on crime, so first off they spend money for more police officers. No one gets elected by promising to build more courts, or add more probation and parole officers. Eventually having more police means the courts get backlogged, which in turn crowds the prisons and the jails, puts more people on probation, and forces the parole board to grant more early releases. Meanwhile, our average caseload increases by 50 percent. We also have more drug and sex offenders than we know what to do with. We spend too much time bailing water out of the boat, with no one steering, so we are just drifting in circles. To vent the frustrations, about once a week the gang and I hold “choir practice” at a bar down the street. After about five or six beers and some carousing and loud singing, then this job looks a lot better. Should Chuck be retained as a training officer? Why or why not?[Page 269] How would changes in politics affect the corrections system directly and indirectly? Do you believe Chuck’s comments are accurate concerning the police getting so much new funding—and the subsequent impacts on courts and corrections? Why do crowded jails and prisons make the job of parole officers more difficult?