Rick Aaron
Salt Lake Tribune/ABC4 UTAH
OGDEN, Utah — Officer Brock Treseder doesn’t chase down suspects or make traffic stops. As a Senior Agent for the Utah Department of Correction’s Adult Probation and Parole division he’s on the other end of the criminal justice system, supervising convicted felons and doing his best to keep them out of prison.
The Ogden area native spent years working inside Utah prisons now he spends his days making sure convicted felons on the outside are adhering to the terms of their parole or probation.
“There’s that public safety aspect of it that you have somebody that’s watching to potentially, hopefully, prevent any further criminal activity and prevent any more victims from being victimized,” Senior Agent Treseder told Behind The Badge. “We really do a lot of different things and it’s knowing when to turn on to say ‘OK I’m the law enforcement officer, I’m the cop’. It’s also to say to turn that on when you need to be a mentor and say ‘How can I help this individual’…We are trying to legitimately help these people reintegrate into the community and help them change their lives.”
So does he get lied to a lot?
“Oh absolutely,” he says with a laugh, adding “A lot of times we know more than they think we know coming into this.”
Agent Treseder also make surprise home visits to check up on his parolees and probationers.
“You never know what you’re walking into,” he says about showing up unannounced, like one visit years ago that he encountered a man with warrants hiding in a shower.
“Upon attempting to take him into custody he actually jumped through a closed window to get away,” Agent Treseder said. “It was summertime so he didn’t have a lot of clothing on and the doctors did say that we likely saved him by finding him for the amount of blood he was losing from his injuries from jumping through the window.”
On a recent day, he and his supervisor visited Teisha Long, a former methamphetamine addict who’s on probation for drug possession, forgery and retail theft.
“I was at rock bottom, like below rock bottom but I’ve got my life together now,” Long said.
Approaching seven months pregnant, she credits Agent Treseder for turning her life around for the better.
“He’s just went above and beyond for me,” Long said. “I think he reiterates every time I go in ‘I’m not playing with you. I will send you to prison if you screw up, especially while you’re pregnant’. Not because of me or my baby just because he wants me to succeed.”
“I’d say she’s on the path to success right now and she’s doing 100 percent better than she was previously,” he said. “I’m big on treating people like people because the only way we’re going to get them reintegrated into the community is if you do treat them like a human being.”
During this visit, Agent Treseder found no evidence of probation violations.
“Keep up the good work,” he told Long. “You’re doing much, much better…I’ll see you for your next appointment.”
Teisha says her next goal is to get her own apartment before her baby arrives in April then she wants to focus on being a mom and with Agent Treseder’s help, to be off probation by her child’s first birthday.