Craziness, It Just Keeps Coming

Alright, in an attempt to save money, our department is instituting a new tool. It is basically a tool that is supposed to measure the likelihood of our offenders reoffending and to uncover hidden needs they might have. The theory being that once we know these needs we can direct them to resources for them to meet the needs, thereby reducing the chances that they will reoffend. I have nothing against this in theory, it sounds good. The problems I have with it are as follows.

1. It takes about an hour of intensive interviewing to administer the tool, plus time to enter it into the computer and get the results, then a follow up interview with the offender to explain the results. I currently have 110 people on my caseload, all but 2 of them under active supervision. I have to see about 75% of them once a month and another 10% twice monthly. The remainder report in quarterly. I don't know how I will make the time to do this, especially when you consider I also have to do field work, court appearances, write warrants, write reports, investigate new transfers, ect. and currently we aren't allowed ANY overtime.

2. The training takes 4 full days. Half our office did it last month, the rest do it this month. You have to complete training, pass a test, pass an interview, and complete a computer test to get ceriftified to use the tool. Then you have to do some other things afterward to gain access to the actual internet site to enter the data. The people who completed the training last month are just now beginning to get their certificates. So it took almost 30 days to get certified. They implemented the new standards this month. We are supposed to be using the tool now. Half of us haven't even had the training and the ones that have are only now being certified, yet it is in effect now?

3. We are a rural area, we have almost no resources to refer clients too, so I am worried that by identifying these needs, we may be setting up the agency to be responsible legally for meeting them. How long before someone ends up in court on a violation and blames these unmet needs on his violating? Sooner or later someone will mention this to their lawyer and it will become an excuse.