Local officer leads first MPO class

February 28, 2011

Stacy Brown addressing her class at the Idaho Post Academy.

It was led by Stacy Brown, Boundary County’s chief probation officer, who was elected class president by her classmates.

“I was proud to have attended the commencement ceremony and watch Stacy graduate with the first class,” Smith said. “She did so well, she was asked by the council to be one of the instructors at the next class, and she agreed. We’re very fortunate to have her in this county, and her accomplishment says a lot for Boundary County on the state level. I’m very proud of her.”

Stacy and her husband bought property in Boundary County in 2000 as she was nearing retirement from a 19-year career with the San Bernadino County, California, Sheriff’s Office, where she worked as an animal control officer. They spent every vacation from then on in Boundary County, developing their property and building their home. After her retirement in 2006, the couple moved here and spent a year finishing their house. When rural life proved just a little too bucolic, her love for law enforcement prompted her to join the Boundary County Sheriffs Office as a volunteer dispatcher.

When the position of county juvenile probation officer opened, she applied and was accepted, a position she’s held for three years now. On May 1, 2010, she was promoted to chief probation officer upon Jackie Bacon’s retirement. Already POST qualified in juvenile probation, a job she still does, she added the misdemeanor probation training once it became available to carry her duties overseeing all functions of her office.

“I’ve always been interested in law enforcement, and this is another aspect of it,” she said. She refuses, however, to take sole credit for her accomplishments.

“I’ve never belonged to an organization that’s so close-knit,” she said. “Everybody has their job to do, but everybody in the county works together, from the courts to the prosecutor’s office to the sheriff’s office. We have the best team I’ve ever seen.”

Despite her long experience, she said the training in Meridian was intense.

“It was a very difficult course, but extremely worthwhile,” she said. “It was excellent training, and the instructors were fantastic.”

The course was developed over the past several years as the Idaho Misdemeanor Probation Committee lobbied the state legislature on the importance of the work misdemeanor probation officers do as part of the state criminal justice system and the need to provide academy level training of the same caliber required of other law enforcement officers. The legislature agreed, last year passing law that will require that misdemeanor probation officers throughout the state attend the academy.

“Misdemeanor probation is an essential tool in the criminal justice system to guide misdemeanor offenders toward becoming law abiding citizens,” Smith said. “I’m glad the state is now able to provide these officers the training they need to do the job correctly and safely. More important, I think it shows that the state values the work these people do. That one of our own officers did so well in the very first MPO class offered says a lot for the program we have here, and that she was selected to become an instructor for the next class says a lot for the professionalism she brings to her job.”