DENVER – Probation officers and other Colorado professionals who help ensure public safety and provide services to crime victims while holding offenders accountable will be honored during the 2017 Pretrial, Probation, and Parole Supervision week.

The national weeklong observance, July 16-22, was started by the American Probation and Parole Association to recognize probation and parole officers as an essential part of the criminal justice system.

The theme for the 2017 celebration is “Clients, Communities, Employees: Empowerment through Partnerships,” highlighting collaboration and teamwork.

More than five million adults are on community supervision in the United States, and most of them are monitored by pretrial, probation and parole officers. That supervision may include home contacts, drug testing, ensuring the offender attends counseling or treatment as ordered by a court, and helping offenders find suitable housing and employment.

In Fiscal Year 2016, there were about 79,600 adults and juveniles, including adults monitored by private probation contractors, on state probation in Colorado. Colorado probation also sent 16,920 notification letters to crime victims to inform them of their right to receive notification of certain events in the case in which they were victimized, with 18 percent signing up for notification.

“We take very seriously our charge to ensure probation clients are safely integrating into society and compensating their victims,” said Michael Garcia, director of the Division of Probation Services. “Our work not only keeps some offenders in the community and working, it also can achieve significant cost savings for the state by providing an important and proven alternative to incarceration.”

Under the Office of the State Court Administrator, the Division of Probation Services provides programmatic, policy, research, legislative, budgetary and training support to all of the 23 probation departments in Colorado.

For more information, visit the Colorado Division of Probation Services at https://www.courts.state.co.us/Probation/Index.cfm or the American Probation and Parole Association at http://www.appa-net.org.