Today, there are 20,800 criminals on probation in Rhode Island — nearly 1 of every 33 adults in the state. Yet there are just 65 probation counselors to deal with the criminals who are out on the streets on probation, a ratio of 363 convicts per counselor. That ratio represents one of the highest caseload rates in the country.

Criminals on probation commit thousands of new crimes every year, from misdemeanors to murder. The people who run the state's probation program concede that it is broken — and that fixing it, while not cheap, is essential.

"There is every reason for the public to care about what happens to probation," said A.T. Wall, the head of the state's Department of Corrections.

"Rhode Islanders would be very surprised if they knew where our probationers are. . . . I see them at bus stops. They have served me in stores and restaurants. I see them when I'm shopping, and I drive by them as I go down the street, as do all Rhode Islanders."

In some communities, it wouldn't take too much searching to find someone on probation: in Providence and Woonsocket, 1 of every 10 men between the ages of 18 and 34 is on probation, The Journal found.

Wall will soon ask the General Assembly to support a five-year plan to overhaul the probation system. The plan would:

B More than quadruple spending for the division of Probation and Parole from its current level of $8 million to nearly $36 million.

B Nearly quadruple the number of workers in probation and parole, from 105 to 406. The proposal would add 157 probation counselors and 144 supervisors, aides, and clerks.

B Spend nearly $6 million on training, computer equipment, and office space to house the 301 new workers at satellite locations throughout the state. Currently, probation counselors receive no training, few have access to computers, and most of them are tucked out of sight in courthouse offices.

A key legislative commission is scheduled to vote on the plan on Tuesday.

PROBATION ALLOWS a convict to live in the community under the supervision of a probation counselor. A judge may sentence someone to probation only, or the judge may split the term of the sentence between prison and probation.

If a convict gets charged with a new crime or fails to follow the conditions of probation, a judge may order the convict to serve the remainder of the sentence in prison. (Inmates who are released from prison before their sentences expire are placed on parole, under the supervision of a parole officer until the sentence is complete.)

Probation - not prison — is the punishment of choice for criminals across the United States. More than 3.7 million criminals were on probation in 1999, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Citing the "hundreds of thousands" of violent crimes committed by criminals on probation every year, the Manhattan Institute, in a 1999 report, called probation "at once the most troubled and the most promising part of America's criminal-justice system."

No one knows for sure how often the police charge criminals on probation with new crimes. The state Department of Corrections says that it's unable to answer the question because of shortcomings in its computer system.

Using the best data available from the corrections department and the state courts — though not all records were available — The Providence Journal found that at least one of every five people put on probation in 1995 committed another offense, while still on probation, by mid-1998.

That number understates Rhode Island's repeat-offense rate, said Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

Though comparing states on repeat-offense rates is difficult because of different data-collection methods, the report by the Manhattan Institute says that, nationwide, nearly two of every three people on probation commit another crime within three years of their sentence.

The Rhode Island repeat offenders from 1995 committed more than 1,400 new crimes, including rape, assault with a dangerous weapon, and child molestation, The Journal found.

For the most part, probation counselors don't pay much attention to the criminals on probation, unless the police press new charges.

Almost half of the people on probation in Rhode Island — about 11,000 convicts — need not even check in for a cursory visit with a counselor. For these criminals, probation means nothing. They are not required to do anything while on probation — no punishment, and no rehabilitation. Almost as often as not, a sentence of probation means a free pass, a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card.

"I think there's a widespread view of the people on probation that in Rhode Island, it's a joke," Whitehouse said. At Whitehouse's request, the General Assembly set up a commission to study probation's flaws and recommend reforms.

For decades, probation has been the ignored stepchild of the Department of Corrections. Wall said that previous directors had no choice but to ignore probation, because the state prisons required all their attention. The state's prisons were once so decrepit that in 1977 a federal-court judge placed them under court supervision; the U.S. District Court lifted its supervision in 1995, after taxpayers had spent $125 million on prison improvements.

Despite all the construction, Rhode Island's prisons are filled to capacity. It costs the state roughly $39,000 to house an inmate for a year, compared with about $500 a year for each probationer.

With the high cost of building prisons and the potential for probation to work well, the Manhattan Institute report called it unrealistic to simply abolish probation and imprison every criminal.

Wall said that Rhode Island's prisons now run smoothly, and that the time has come to overhaul probation.

A BIG PART of Wall's plan to fix probation is hiring more counselors so they can watch criminals more closely.

It is impossible for probation workers to effectively supervise caseloads of more than 300 people. It is doubly difficult when they don't have the tools to do the job. Only about 20 of the 65 probation counselors have a computer on the desk to write reports, check criminal backgrounds, and confirm addresses.

(In a typical caseload, about half the cases are considered inactive, and the probationers need not report to their caseworker at all.)

"With the current caseload, the convict is not being taken care of properly," said Edgar J. Jensen Jr., president of the Rhode Island Probation and Parole Association. "It's not like they're slipping through the cracks, uh-uh. These aren't cracks they're slipping through; they're giant holes in the floor."

Other states have much smaller caseloads. Probation counselors in New Jersey carry an average of 150 probationers, according to the Criminal Justice Institute, a research company in Middletown, Conn.

Convicts who are required to check in with counselors receive little supervision. They generally visit counselors in courthouse offices once a month for 10-minute interviews. Many don't show for their scheduled appointments, but they are rarely sanctioned for their failure to attend.

Often, the counselor and the convict do not even speak the same language. Although 42 percent of probationers are minorities, 96 percent of probation counselors are white. Only a few counselors are bilingual.

Most probation offices are located in courthouses, such as the J. Joseph Garrahy Judicial Center, in Providence. At the Garrahy Center, soot stains the ceilings around the air vents, the carpets are held together with duct tape, and sheets of wallpaper curl away from the walls.

With too few counselors supervising too many clients in a drab place, morale is bad. A flier on a secretary's desk reads: "This job is a test. It's only a test. Had this been an actual job, you would have received raises, promotions, and other signs of appreciation."

Counselors in the Providence office squeeze most of their interviews with probationers into a four-hour period, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Mondays. On a recent Monday afternoon, Joseph Smith, who is on probation, came in for his "report session" wearing a New York Yankees logo on a wide-brimmed hat and a Nike jacket. Smith had been sentenced to 2 months in jail with 10 months' probation for a domestic-violence conviction in 1998. Two years later, he still had not completed court-ordered counseling, so his probation remained in effect.

It's rare for a person in Rhode Island to draw jail time for a domestic assault, but this was Smith's third conviction on that charge; according to court records, he had also been convicted twice of simple assault; he also had one conviction for robbery, and one for possessing a stolen motor vehicle.

About a year ago, a judge had declared Smith to be in violation of probation for failing to attend domestic-violence classes at the New England Batterers Intervention Program. Smith was released from jail in October.

"Have you started [the domestic-violence classes], Joe?" said his probation counselor, John Antonelli.

"No. I went and they told me I needed a $20 deposit."

Because Smith had been sent to jail, he'd lost his Social Security check; he had reapplied, but was awaiting approval. Without the check, he couldn't pay for the classes.

"I can understand that to a degree," Antonelli said. "Due to a person being on SSI, we give them a little bit of leeway. How are you spending your days?"

Smith: "I stay in the house. Stay in the house and watch TV."

Antonelli told Smith to go to class as soon as he got his check. He set another meeting date for the following month.

Antonelli's next client was Cirilo Pichardo, on probation for domestic violence. He held an orange hardhat and wore Survivor boots.

Pichardo was attending a program for batterers, but he was dropped for missing too many classes. Antonelli had arranged it so that he could rejoin the program if he agreed to take five extra classes, but the program directors had notified Antonelli that Pichardo never resumed classes.

"I got you back into the program with a penalty of five classes," Antonelli said. Pichardo, whose first language is Spanish, did not respond. "Sometimes there's a language barrier, and it happens quite frequently," Antonelli said. "I really am not certain he understands this. I know you really don't understand," he said to Pichardo. "I know you really don't understand much I'm telling you, and this is a major concession I have to make.

"You go [to the program] this Saturday," Antonelli said. "The original deal was five penalty classes. You might have to start from zero."

"That's OK," Pichardo said.

"I'm going to see you on Monday. I want you to go to the Saturday class, then come here on Monday. I'm going to give you another shot, and this is where it gets frustrating."

Antonelli coaxed from Pichardo that he'd been working as a roofer for $10 an hour. He told Pichardo: "You've got a good future there, with a job like that."

JOHN RECUPERO is one of the few probation counselors who has a computer on his desk. Most counselors rely on secretaries to check criminal information on probationers.

Recupero scheduled 27 clients for a four-hour period for a recent Monday-afternoon "report session." Among the 27 was Leah Simmons, who had been convicted of prostitution. Simmons arrived for the interview wearing sneakers and a black dress that stopped at mid-thigh.

Recupero: "Are you working?"

Simmons: "No, I'm not."

Recupero: "Are you on SSI?"

Simmons: "I have no source of income. That's why they arrested me for prostitution."

Recupero leafed through some papers. As a condition of her sentence, a judge required Simmons to attend AIDS counseling.

"Are you aware of the AIDS program at the Urban League?," Recupero asked.

"No, I'm not."

Recupero tells her that it's an eight-hour program that includes AIDS testing and counseling. "It's free; you don't have to pay for it — that's the good news," Recupero said. "The bad news is: you do have to go to it."

Recupero noted that, according to her file, Simmons hadn't been on probation for six years. Why was she at it again? Was it drugs?

No, it's not drugs, she said. "To be honest with you, it's not that I haven't been doing what I was doing; it's just that I haven't gotten caught."

Actually, she had been caught more recently than Recupero's files indicated. According to files in District Court, Providence, Simmons had been arrested for prostitution in 1998. Recupero was aware of most of her previous record, however: at least nine arrests over the years, including assault and attempting escape from maximum security. In fact, she had been sentenced to AIDS counseling before.

"I've been in and out of the system for 20 years," Simmons said. "It's a bunch of BS." Out of earshot of Recupero, Simmons predicted that he would tell her that when she completes the AIDS counseling, her probation will be banked and she won't have to see him any more.

As if on cue Recupero, looked up from the file: "As soon as you get this done, I probably won't require you to report" any more, he said.

"See? What did I tell you?" Simmons said. "Great, that works for me," she told Recupero.

OF THE 27 PEOPLE Recupero scheduled for appointments, 17 showed; 10 did not.

"I had a lot of people scheduled, so — not bad at all," he said. He will send the no-shows a form letter, telling them to reschedule their appointments. "That'll get some of them," he said.

He could drive out to the last known addresses of the no-shows, but with more than 300 cases he hadn't the time. "I usually get stuck in here," Recupero said. "Most of my caseload is fairly simple. The majority of them are just cut and dry. Have you done your community service? OK, let's get it done."

Missing a counseling session will not net a probation violation. Even when counselors do bring probationers into court for violating probation, "it's very, very difficult for somebody to go to jail for violating their probation," Recupero said. "It does happen. But they're given every opportunity" to avoid jail.

Sharon Braitsch, the office supervisor, said that if counselors recommended prison for everyone who failed to show for a session, "we would halt this system."

THE CONDITION at the Kent County Courthouse, in Warwick, is much the same as in Providence: poor ventilation; drab, windowless offices; too many probationers for too few counselors.

On a typical weekday morning one counselor there, David Florio, spent some time in court, and some catching up on his files. In those files were:

B The case of a man who runs a baseball-card shop while on probation for child molestation.

"On a weekend, I drop by the shop and say, 'Hi,' " Florio said. "I see how many kids are in the baseball-card shop and remind him, 'Hey, I know what you used to do in the back room.' I'll see him every six to eight weeks. I'll stop by on weekends. I won't bring my kids though." Florio makes those weekend visits on his own time, as he's too busy during the week to make field visits.

B The case of a swindler serving probation for fraud. "She's one of the people who are continually in and out of the system," Florio said as he dialed the woman's home number. When he reached her, he said, "Well, I figured out the restitution in one of your cases — the one where you stole the money from the three girls for the rental unit?" When he hung up Florio said that the woman had a new job: working for her mother's realty company, in Providence. "That's scary," Florio said. "She's working [in real estate]. Oh man, here we go again! Here we go!"

B A man serving probation for assault with intent to rape a 17-year-old girl. With the blessing of Rhode Island's corrections department, the man moved to Florida to install gym equipment in high schools. When Florida's probation department learned of his employment, they sent him back to Rhode Island with an admonishment.

B A man being moved to probation from parole after serving time for running a stolen-car-parts "chop shop." While on parole, the man drove for a transportation company, hauling cars throughout the Northeast.

Florio's caseload that day was 333 probationers, including 51 sex offenders. "About 10 percent of the caseload I can supervise," he said. "Then after that it's — the rest of them are either doing what they should be doing or . . . " He left the sentence unfinished.

MORE THAN 100 criminals packed courtroom 4F inside the Garrahy courthouse on a recent Wednesday morning, spilling out two sets of doors to the hallway. Some were there so that Judge John McLoughlin could check whether they've been paying their fines, others so that the judge could monitor their probation.

Michael Cicillini, a 46-year-old construction foreman with three decades of crime under his belt, sat in the front row in his coat, black jeans, and workboots until the judge called him up to the bench for probation review. Since age 18, Cicillini has spent a total of 13 years in prison.

While he was on probation in the 1990s, Cicillini appeared in court some 30 times to face new charges: felony assault, theft, possession of heroin.

Nine times, Cicillini admitted in court that he violated probation; seven times probation officers withdrew violation reports.

With each admitted violation, the judges could have sent him to prison for years. Instead, they sometimes gave him a few sentences totaling just about one year; most of the time, they let him continue on probation.

Now Cicillini faced the threat of jail again.

Denis Beaulieu, a probation counselor assigned to court duty that day, reported to McLoughlin that Cicillini had failed a drug test in January — testing positive for opiates and the prescription medicine he takes for anxiety.

"I think this has gone on long enough," Beaulieu said, as Cicillini stood silently, his hands clasped in front of him.

McLoughlin turned to Beaulieu and asked: "Do you want him held at the ACI?"

No, Beaulieu said. Cicillini showed good faith by showing up in court. McLoughlin ordered Cicillini to come back to court for a violation hearing.

Downstairs, in the courthouse snack bar, Cicillini sat at a table and worried aloud that he'd get sent to prison — and possibly lose ground in his struggle against addiction.

Right now, he said, he's taking methadone and getting counseling for his heroin addiction.

Cicillini said he's married, has a 5-year-old daughter, and a house in Johnston. Every week, he said he's working 40 hours as a construction foreman and paying $84 for the methadone that's supposed to curb his craving for heroin.

Cicillini praised his counselor, Ralph Millspaugh, for being tough and for helping him find counseling. "I'm trying to do everything right," he said.

Getting sent back to the ACI as a probation violator for a few months would be devastating, Cicillini said: he'd lose his family, get out with no money, and have to start over again. Plus, he said, it would cost the state more to keep him behind bars than in the community, where he's been getting help.

"That's not right," he said. "That's not fair"

Two Wednesdays later, Cicillini returned to courtroom 4F, waiting nervously for his violation hearing to begin.

Beaulieu told the judge that the probation department had received a doctor's letter saying that Cicillini had been taking legally prescribed opiate painkillers for a back injury suffered at work.

Beaulieau said he was satisfied that the medicine caused Cicillini to fail the drug test — and the violation hearing was off.

McLoughlin ordered Cicillini to return to court in early May.

Cicillini left the courtroom that afternoon, smiling and relieved.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, a series in The Providence Journal outlined a system in crisis: probation was understaffed and underfunded; counselor caseloads averaged 200, and some 3,500 probationers received no supervision at all.

Responding to The Journal's report, the General Assembly in 1985 convened a special commission to recommend ways to improve probation. But a new wave of inmates in the mid-and late-1980s forced corrections officials to push probation aside, Wall, head of the corrections department, said.

Since 1985, the caseloads of probation workers have increased by 50 percent.

Last year state taxpayers spent $494 per probationer — adjusted for inflation that is about $60 more per probationer than the state spent in 1985. Wall said that probation has been too long neglected, and that the time has come to invest in the program.

In the first year of his five-year plan, beginning in July, Wall would nearly double the probation budget, from $8 million to $14.95 million. This money would pay for 80 new workers, with $1.3 million for computers, office equipment, and tools to determine which criminals on probation pose the greatest risk.

Governor Almond's budget proposal for the next fiscal year does not include a $6.95-million increase for probation; it does include $460,000 to train counselors in assessing each client's likelihood to commit new crimes. "We're still in the process of looking at the specifics [of Wall's plan], and then we'll see where it goes," said Tom Kogut, a spokesman for the governor.

Wall, who drafted the plan with the help of his staff, said he anticipates a hard sell to the General Assembly.

"At this point, there is a crisis of credibility," Wall said. "So we have an obligation to demonstrate that the public will receive value for these added funds — that it won't just be business as usual."

Wall said that he does not want to hire new workers so that they can provide more of the same medicine that is not working now. He wants to overhaul every aspect of how counselors do business: where and when they meet with probationers and how often they meet probationers. He even wants to change the job title, from probation counselor to probation officer.

If the General Assembly adopts Wall's plan, then probation officers would move from the state's courthouses to neighborhood offices. The officers would work nights and weekends, making unannounced visits.

Already, the department is testing the idea with Safe Streets Providence, modeled after Operation Night Light, in Boston (see related story). Since last summer, five probation counselors, accompanied by city police officer, have been dropping in on high-risk offenders at their homes and hangouts.

If Wall's plan is adopted, most probation officers would see dramatic changes in their schedules and working habits, but so far the plans to overhaul the probation department have been well received by the union that represents probation and parole workers.

Jensen said that, with proper training, the union supports neighborhood-based supervision, with announced home visits on nights and weekends when convicts are likely to be home.

"Up to now, we've had the attitude that, if the neighborhood is dangerous, don't go," said Jensen, the union president. "But you have to take a chance for public safety.

"What [a home visit] does is — psychologically, now [the probationer] is looking over his shoulder," Jensen said. "That's important. To this point, probation in Rhode Island — it hasn't worked. Nobody's watching these guys."

If the General Assembly agrees to quadruple the budget for probation over the next five years, Rhode Island probation officers would work out of neighborhood offices; they would have computer access to criminal histories; they would be trained in assessing the likelihood that a convict will commit another crime; and the average caseload would be 77 convicts per officer.

Wall said that his proposal would bring Rhode Island into line with "basic professional standards" for supervising those who are convicted of crimes but are still free to live outside the prison walls as workers and neighbors of the law abiding.