Henry Harris: An Advocate for Parolees

When Henry Harris was growing up in a small farming community in rural Arkansas, folks didn’t sit still if they saw children misbehave--anybody’s children.

“Everybody and anybody could correct you,” he said. “They’d pull your coattails, spank you if necessary and tell your parents. There wasn’t much opportunity for mischief. It was a good life.”

Appreciation of his good fortune is why Harris sympathizes with the parolees he has met in his 15 years as a parole agent and supervisor, especially those who grew up in the inner city.

“Quite frankly, if I had grown up in Los Angeles, I may have gotten into trouble,” he said. “It’s dysfunctional families and a whole lot of peer pressure, drugs and gangs. And the feeling now is that if it’s not your child, it’s not your business. Or if you live in Laguna Beach, let Santa Ana take care of it.”

As the supervisor of 10 parole agents, Harris, 41, today makes it his business to help people stay out of jail. His Santa Ana unit, one of six in Orange County, works with about 700 parolees at a time to find housing, jobs and counseling. And last Christmas, the office distributed more than 100 toys to children of parolees and sponsored a dinner for the families.

“I don’t want to be a distant supervisor,” Harris said. “I go out in the waiting room, I go into the agents’ offices, I talk to the parolees and see how they feel, how they’re doing. We try to put something positive, a taste of success into their lives.”

The Santa Ana unit also runs Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings and provides housing for those who have nowhere to go.

“Nothing is going to do any good if a person is starving,” he said. “You can’t just throw people out there and expect them to make it. If they’re on drugs, they need to be helped instead of sent back to jail. And the families need to be worked with--that’s the most important thing. Most of these people have had nothing but negative experiences. . . .” Although his childhood was peaceful, it was not without encounters of racism.

As a child, he noticed that white children called black adults by their first names, while black children were required to address white elders as “mister.” And at 13, he attended a segregated school for the first time.

After college, Harris married an exchange student from South Africa and went to live in that country. There, he saw tin huts, paper houses, starvation and “For Whites Only” signs.

When Harris was unable to extend his visa, he and his wife returned to the United States and moved to Orange County in 1982.

“In South Africa, racism is legalized and upfront,” he said. “In Orange County, it’s more sophisticated and disguised.”

Despite a desire to move back to the Midwest, Harris said he will stay because California is a progressive state for parolees, and he loves his job.

“For a lot of people, kindness, warmth and understanding goes a long way,” he said. “Who pays for it in the end if they go back to jail? We all do. It’s really a problem for all of us.”