Joe Liberatos, Cooley's probation officer, knocked on the door of a trailer near Raleigh's eastern city limits and discovered Cooley was out past his court-imposed curfew. With a sigh, Liberatos walked back to his state-issue white Ford Taurus last Tuesday night to head on to the next house on his list.

That's when Cooley pulled up in his girlfriend's car without an explanation about his tardiness.

"I'm trying to help you out," Liberatos told the 21-year-old, who is on probation for a misdemeanor larceny charge. "You can't just test me and roll up with your girlfriend."

Cooley was one of a half-dozen probationers Liberatos checked on that night. He oversees offenders with gang ties.

But now probation officers find themselves under scrutiny. The killing of UNC student body president Eve Carson on March 5 revealed gaps in the system.

State Correction Department officials found mishandling in the probation case of two men now charged in the Carson case. At the time of the killing, one suspect, Demario James Atwater, 21, was on probation in Wake County but the system had largely lost track of him. The Wake office is responsible for keeping track of 7,760 probationers and parolees. It has one of the highest turnover rates in the state, with 14 percent of its staff leaving each year. Half of the 108 officers have less than five years' experience, according to the Correction Department.

Atwater could have been one of Liberatos' charges if his case been routed properly. Liberatos was told by supervisors not to discuss the situation. Last week, he went through his regular rounds, trying to keep those he visits from ending up in jail.

In one week, Liberatos, 31, puts at least 700 miles on his Taurus as he crosses eastern Wake County. He juggles doing home and office check-ups and drug screenings with finishing stacks of paperwork and attending court hearings.

He straddles the line between cop and social worker. He wears a bulletproof vest and carries a gun. He has cups to collect urine for drug screenings. He gets school report cards faxed to him. He gives out tips for job hunts and praises those who abide by the rules.

'Mr. Joe,' to offenders

Liberatos, a seven-year employee with the Wake County probation office, keeps up with 58 offenders. The load is near the 60-case limit set by state statute, but it feels lighter to Liberatos. Just a few months ago, he had more than double that.

Liberatos tells the offenders to call him Mr. Joe. He said they have enough to do without trying to pronounce his last name. They must get jobs, attend GED classes or go to school, and stay out of trouble.

Liberatos wants to help. He said many of the offenders on his list are "good kids" who get mixed up with the wrong crowds.

What happens to them is often up to him and his supervisors. There are no guidelines on how many missed appointments or failed drug screenings should trigger the process of revoking probation.

He gives an example of one, a high school senior affiliated with the Bloods street gang. The offender has a job at a local fast food restaurant that kept him out past his curfew. He hadn't told Liberatos about the work schedule.

"Do I arrest him and have him miss his senior year?" Liberatos asked. "You have to have a good balance between treatment and control."

Probation officers enforce the law, but they lack the technical and physical support given to police.

They work alone, for salaries starting at $30,338. There's no radio dispatcher offering a lifeline back to headquarters and other officers. They go to homes day and night and weekends to make sure their offenders are home when they're supposed to be.

Liberatos gingerly walks the line between being an enforcer and showing basic respect.

"I'm inside these people's houses, a lot of them don't want me there," Liberatos said. "We're guests on their turf -- when they're on my turf, it's a little different."

When he does his home checks, he's armed with a gun, pepper spray, flashlight and a phone. He doesn't have a laptop that would allow him to pull up files while he's in the field. For that, he'd have to head back to his office in downtown Raleigh.

On the way to his next call, Liberatos plugs addresses into his GPS system, stopping at homes in neighborhoods of all income ranges from Raleigh to Wendell. He knows most of what he does won't change the patterns of drug use and criminal activity that put people on his list. He said he's more likely to see his charges graduate to more serious crimes than to turn their lives around.

Meeting a need

But Liberatos also knows he's meeting a need among an often desperate population. When he took a day for weapons training Wednesday, he came back to find 27 messages on his voice mail.

One message came from a gang member fighting drug addiction who was considering having his sentence activated so he could try to get clean in prison. Liberatos tried to discourage him, telling him he knew of some drug treatment programs for inpatients that would work better than being locked up.

Other messages came from parents, teachers and offenders.

On his Thursday night rounds, Liberatos spent from five to 15 minutes talking with each offender about their coming appointments and inquiring about job interviews. His day had started at 7:30 a.m. and it was almost 9 p.m. He struggled to remember names of some, remarking that it had been a long day.

Jerrard Cooley, on probation for the first time, has been under Liberatos' watch since January. Liberatos stopped by his house two nights later and found that Cooley was again out past his curfew, but Cooley had been at the East Regional Library in Knightdale to apply for a job. When Cooley returned home, Liberatos stopped by to talk about the importance of following the rules. He lectured. Cooley nodded.

Then Mr. Joe gave him another chance.

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