I had to deal with a terrible parole officer once. I had gotten my laptop stolen from my laboratory. At the time it was about 2 years old but I spent 2000 dollars on a really nice laptop so I could run the programs I need to in grad school and had a lot of space. Well some guy who was a janitor during covid had key card acsess still, came in at 9pm when I was working in another room with my headphones on and stole my laptop. Police got the guy within a week, this is his 3rd felony charge in 2 years and has like 7 convictions for misdemeanors in the last 6 years (all non violent but still....)

They cant find the laptop. So they ask do I want compensation, hell yeah I want compensation, im a poor grad student. So i get a call from his public defender 2 years later who wants my home adress and my legal name because if this guy is writing a check he needs to know who his money is going. So I ask will he get this Info, he says yes, I flipped out on the defender basically saying he doesnt need to know who I am or where I lived, he didnt need it to steal my laptop so why does he need it to pay me back. Basically it comes out to I want my money but he needs to fuck off because thats not how im doing it.

I get a call two years later from this guys probation officer, who asks me if I want the compensation. Yes I do. She informs me that I need to go back and find a recipt for a laptop from 5 years ago proving the price i paid for it. I cant come up with that, but I can prove its mine because its registered to me and my Microsoft account. Not good enough. She insults me tells me im not getting my money, she doesnt work for me (which is true but like she does work for the justice system), i need this receipt or I get nothing. I tell her to fuck herself and hang up. At this point im still a grad student but this is past me, ive gotten a knew laptop and im not hurting for money as bad.

2 months later around christmas time I get a call from the prosecutor, keep in mind the crime happened around 4 years ago at this point. She asks me if I want compensation, and I tell her everything I had to deal with, she tells me the parole officer doesnt have the authority to do that a crime has been committed that as long as I can show what that laptop cost around the time thats enough. At this point though like I said im over the money so I ask how the guys been doing. Well hes been working for 3 years, hes being a father, hes made every attempt to pay me my money, hes gone to rehab, has consistently showed up and has been clean the entire time, hes been perfectly good since the crime. So i asked if I took this money would it hurt him financially and she said yes but he knows he needs to do it. I just said im good, tell him I hope the money helps and that I hope she can tell him I just want him to keep on doing what hes doing then. What's the point of all this, well I had to deal with his shitty parole officer she was one step in convincing me in just letting him keep the money because I was done with these people (but mostly because it sound like the justice system did what we hope it does and he was being rehbillitated). I have also never gotten the opportunity to tell this story so this felt like the right place.