Main content

Job Details for Chief U.S. Probation Officer

Court Name/Organization:	District of New Jersey
Overview of the Position:	The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey is seeking a qualified individual for the position of Chief U.S. Probation Officer. The Chief Probation Officer is directly responsible for the administration and management of the federal probation office in the District of New Jersey. The Chief Probation Officer is a Court Unit Executive who operates under the direction of the Chief Judge of the NJ U.S. District Court. The District of New Jersey has 17 active district judges, four senior judges, 16 magistrate judges and one part-time magistrate judge. The U.S. Probation Office maintains headquarters in the Newark courthouse. There are divisional offices in the Camden and Trenton courthouses as well as a satellite office located in Paterson. As of Oct. 31, 2024, the staff of 89 includes the chief, one deputy chief, two assistant deputy chiefs, ten supervising probation officers, 19 senior officer specialists, 35 probation officers and assistants and 21 clerical, technical and administrative support staff. Present workload includes the supervision of 2,245 probationers, parolees, and supervised releasees. During Fiscal Year 2024, 912 presentence investigations were prepared for the Court.
Location:	Newark, Trenton , Camden, NJ
Opening and Closing Dates:	11/08/2024 - 12/09/2024
Appointment Type:	Permanent
Classification Level/Grade:	JSP 16 - JSP 18
Salary:	$185,504 - $243,300
Announcement Number:	25-04
Link to Job Announcement

Position Description

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey is seeking a qualified individual for the position of Chief

U.S. Probation Officer. The Chief Probation Officer is directly responsible for the administration and management of the federal probation office in the District of New Jersey. The Chief Probation Officer is a Court Unit Executive who operates under the direction of the Chief Judge of the NJ U.S. District Court. The District of New Jersey has 17 active district judges, 4 senior judges, 16 magistrate judges and one part-time magistrate judge. The U.S. Probation Office maintains headquarters in the Newark courthouse. There are divisional offices in the Camden and Trenton courthouses as well as a satellite office located in Paterson.

Minimum Qualifications
The duties and responsibilities of the Chief Probation Officer includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Organizes the probation office to ensure expeditious handling of investigative work for the Courts, institutions, and the parole authorities to include effective case supervision of probationers, parolees and persons on supervised release.

• Reviews, analyzes and interprets statutory, Judicial Conference and Parole Commission requirements for the administration of probation and parole services; promulgates policies, procedures, and guidelines necessary to meet these requirements.

• Maintains administrative liaison with the Court of jurisdiction to include promulgating policies, procedures and guidelines to meet the unique needs of the Court, along with standards to ensure an appropriate level of service delivery. Establishes and maintains cooperative relationships with other local Court executives to ensure appropriate level of service delivery to the Court.

• Maintains liaison with the Chief Judge and other Judges; makes specific recommendations regarding Court-related criminal justice issues with particular emphasis on matters relating to sound sentencing practices.

• Selects and recommends candidates for appointment as probation officers to the Court and appoints all non-officer personnel; provides specific recommendations to the Court on all other personnel matters including promotions, salary increases, disciplinary actions, and dismissals; determines that all personnel are carefully selected and adequately trained; makes certain the work of all subordinates is systematically evaluated.

• Manages the staff of the office including all clerical, professional, supervisory and administrative personnel.

• Prepares operating budget and makes estimates of personnel, space allocation and operating allowance needs; approves requisitions, certifies vouchers for payment; and maintains appropriate fiscal controls in all matters pertaining to travel expenses and purchases of services, equipment and supplies.

• Establishes and maintains cooperative relationships with other probation and pretrial services offices to assure all requests for assistance from other districts are met promptly and effectively.

• Responsible for the oversight of the solicitation and implementation of contractual services for substance abuse and mental health treatments of clients.

• Establishes and maintains cooperative relationships with all components of the criminal justice system to include federal, state, and local law enforcement, correctional, and social service agencies.

• Maintains a system of communication, enabling awareness of pertinent information at all levels; delegates decision- making responsibility at appropriate levels; provides qualitative and quantitative measures of work performance; and assures accountability with minimal interference to service delivery.

• Develops and maintains a public relations program which explains probation, parole, and other correctional services to the community; assumes responsibility for communication to the news media.

• Monitors community events and issues with special attention on alleviating hazardous office and field incidents. Performs related duties as required by the Court.

Qualification

Minimum Qualifications
Educational Requirement: A bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university. Advanced degree is preferred.

Specialized Experience: A minimum of three years of specialized experience is mandatory and does not permit any substitutions.

Specialized experience is defined as progressively responsible experience in the investigation, supervision, counseling and guidance of offenders in community correction or probation programs, preferably in the federal level. Specialized experience must be earned after the bachelor’s degree has been attained. Experience in police officer, FBI agent, customs agent, marshal or similar positions, unless it is criminal investigation experience, does not meet the requirements of specialized experience.

Crediting for Substantial Management Experience: Three years of substantial management experience may be substituted for the requirement that one of the three years of specialized experience be at or equivalent to the next lower grade level.

Substantial management experience is high-level administrative experience that provides a thorough understanding of the organizational, procedural and human aspects of managing an organization. Such experience typically includes financial management, space and facilities management, oversight of the information technology and human resources functions, and long and short-range planning.

Court Preferred Skills
Substantial knowledge of and experience in the operations and management of federal probation services. Knowledge of federal judiciary strategic direction, policies and procedures. Knowledge of the U.S. Sentencing guidelines, applicable statutes and case law, and Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Knowledge of evidence-based practices and re-entry initiatives which clearly link to current and future operations and activities.

Experience and tenure in leading teams, managing budgets and financial plans, leading large multifaceted projects, evaluating work processes and organizational impact, re-engineering or creating new organizational models, and planning and implementing organizational change.

Ability to effectively interact with Judges, the legal community, and other law enforcement, corrections and service providing agencies. Displays executive leadership, vision and innovation. Skill in operational leadership, strong analytical skills, and excellent oral and written communication skills. Ability to learn and adapt to change while leading an organization, to get the results under challenging conditions and inspires others to perform at a high level. Exhibits a presence that builds confidence in others. Possesses the ability to think through problems from a fresh point of view and is comfortable with complexity, ambiguity, and explaining their ideas/thoughts to others.

Miscellaneous

Probation and pretrial services officers and assistants must not have reached their 37th birthday at the time of appointment. For an applicant with previous LEO (law enforcement officer) experience under the CSRS or the FERS and either a subsequent break in service or intervening service in a non-LEO position, the maximum entry age is increased by adding the number of years of previous law enforcement experience to 37. For example, for a candidate with five years of creditable previous law enforcement experience, the maximum entry age would be 42.

Where appropriate, the Court provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with a disability as defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process, please contact Human Resources at the Clerk’s Office: 609-989-2084. Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.

The Court reserves the right to modify the conditions of this job announcement or to withdraw the job announcement, or to fill the position sooner than the closing date, if a closing date is shown, any of which action may occur without any prior written notice. The Court will only communicate with those qualified applicants who are selected for an interview. If a subsequent vacancy of the same position becomes available within a reasonable time of the original announcement, the Court may elect to select a candidate from the original qualified applicant pool.

Judiciary employees serve under excepted appointments and are considered “at will” and can be terminated with or without cause by the Court. All information provided by applicants is subject to verification and false statement or omissions of information on any application materials may be grounds for non-selection, withdrawal of an offer of employment or dismissal after being employed. All newly appointed employees are subject to a probationary period. This position is subject to mandatory electronic fund transfer (direct deposit) for salary payment.

Conditions of Employment
Applicants must be U.S. citizens or eligible to work in the U.S. This is a highly sensitive position, which will require the successful candidate to undergo a full background investigation by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), including a comprehensive check of financial and credit records. Applicants will be hired provisionally pending the outcome of the investigation. Employment is contingent upon the outcome of a favorable OPM background investigation. An unsatisfactory background investigation may result in termination of employment.

Prior to appointment, the individual selected for this position must undergo a medical examination and drug screening. Upon successful completion of the medical examination and drug screening, the selectee may be appointed provisionally, pending a favorable suitability determination by the Court.  In addition, as a condition of employment, the Chief will be subject to ongoing random drug screening, updated background investigations every five years and, as deemed necessary by management for reasonable cause, may be subject to subsequent fitness-for-duty evaluations. The medical requirements and essential job functions derived from the medical guidelines are available for public review on the USCourts.gov website.

How To Apply

Qualified applicants must submit electronically a complete application packet (1 pdf), which includes the following documents:

1. A cover letter; (please indicate in your cover letter your preference of duty station – Newark, Trenton or Camden)
2. A current and detailed resume
3. Name and contact information for three professional references
4. A completed, signed Federal Judicial Branch Employment Application AO78

Please name your single PDF file using your last and first name, i.e., “SmithMark.pdf”. Please submit the completed application packet to the attention of: Melissa E. Rhoads, Esq., Clerk of Court via the Court’s Recruitment Database and uploaded to the following link on or before Dec. 9, 2024, by 5 p.m.

Due to the volume of applications anticipated, the Court will only communicate with those qualified applicants who are selected for an interview. The Court is not authorized to reimburse travel expenses for interviews.

The federal Judiciary is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer.