Reporting for Work Where You Once Reported for Probation

One afternoon in October, Abdul Malik was sitting just inside the entrance of a New York City Probation Department building in the South Bronx when he recognized a young man coming in and beckoned him over.

Like many people passing through the building, the teen had been arrested and sentenced to probation and had come for a mandatory check-in with his probation officer. But he greeted Malik warmly and launched into an enthusiastic description of his new carpentry job. Malik, through his connections to local businesses in need of laborers, had set it up for him.

Malik is employed by the Department of Probation; he wore a navy-blue hoodie with “D.O.P.” printed on the front and a badge emblazoned on one arm. But while the officers there are responsible for monitoring whether clients are complying with their terms of probation and holding them accountable if they are not, Malik’s job is to build trust and offer support, with the goal of steering them away from crime.

He is what’s known as a credible messenger—someone with personal experience of the criminal-justice system, typically their own criminal record, who now has unique legitimacy to help others in a similar position. (His official title is community associate.) The probationers passing through aren’t required to meet with him, which he says makes the relationships more organic and authentic than those they are compelled to have with their officers. Rather than supplant probation, he supplements it, serving the youth as