The NYPD-ification of Probation Department: Commissioner Juanita Holmes’s Law-Enforcement Agenda has Sparked Internal Revolt But as a Historic First, Is She Being Held to a Different Standard?

By: Seriki

Historic Moments

In March 2023, Mayor Erick Adams appointed Juanita N. Holmes as the first Black female commissioner of the NYC Department of Probation. Holmes began her career with the NYPD in 1987, serving as the chief of NYPD training before her appointment.  Holmes succeeded Ana M. Bermúdez, the first openly gay person and the first Latina to be appointed to the role of commissioner, serving from 2014 to 2022. Both of these appointments were celebrated as milestones in an agency where the majority of the workforce is women of color. Many hoped that their leadership would continue to guide the department, centered on dignity, fairness, and the social work mission, as their predecessors had.

According to Mayor’s Adams’ statement during the appointment, “Holmes will build on the current successes of the DOP to further advance public safety and community justice, including the agency’s evidence-based credible messenger mentoring programs and its Neighborhood Opportunity Network (NeON), a unique and trusted resource that provides a range of services to people on probation and other community members in seven New York City communities that the justice system has disproportionately impacted for decades”. Mayor Adams may not have doubted that Juanita N. Holmes would successfully carry on these departmental tasks, despite praising her dedication to public safety and support for DOP’s mission.

Holmes wasted no time proving where her loyalty lies. She didn’t bother unpacking the Department of Probation’s mission, but rather, she just unpacked her police uniform.

Probation or Police Precinct – Can she tell the difference?

The job description and responsibilities of probation officers primarily involve supervising individuals on probation, ensuring they comply with court-ordered conditions, updating the court on their compliance, and filing a violation of probation report when necessary. Additionally, probation officers conduct interviews and prepare investigation reports for the court. Probation Officers also manage cases by conducting home visits and school visits, referring probationers for rehabilitation services, which may include mental health services and preventive therapy, and monitoring their compliance with these programs. 

Despite Mayor Adams’s claim that she would build on past successes, Commissioner Holmes’s term has been marred by controversies. Critics argue that she has transformed the agency’s culture to resemble a police precinct, rather than continuing the progress made by her predecessors. A commissioner with no prior experience in probation or social work, and an unwillingness to learn, yet implements the familiarity-based police approach. From requiring officers to carry guns, wear full uniforms, police lookalike shoes, wield batons, and authorize new silver badges for probation officers that are closely similar to the shields worn by NYPD patrol officers. It appears that her mission is to treat probation like the NYPD’s lost cousin.

The question is, can Holmes differentiate between NYPD responsibilities, which mainly involve investigating crime, maintaining public order, arresting unlawful individuals, and enforcing the law, from DOP, whose purpose is rehabilitation, supervision, and re-entry support? The shift in original mission has left staff discouraged and demoralized. The result of Commissioner Holmes’ ill-advised and misguided priorities has been an inability to retain experienced staff and higher vacancy rates. Many staff members filed for early retirement, some seeking better job offers with higher pay and a more dignified treatment. Some of the recruits left before completing the training, and according to UPOA president Powell, the commissioner cancelled three academy classes as a result of the high turnover rate. As she highlighted in one of her interviews with a local newspaper, “hiring has failed to keep pace with the high rate of resignations and retirements, pushing the remaining workforce to its breaking point”.

The Controversial Leadership Style

Since her appointment in 2023, Commissioner Juanita Holmes has received more media coverage than any of her predecessors who have managed the agency in the past. Local newspapers including New York Daily News, Yahoo News, GazetteXtra, The City-New York City News and The City Council Hearings have documented her failed management style, which includes implementing a law enforcement management style over the traditional rehabilitation mission of the agency. Specificity of other issues consists of the following.

Hiring practices in which the commissioner hired friends, relatives, and associates from her NYPD career into senior positions, forcing many long-term staff to leave the agency. Within 16 months, five different individuals have served as Deputy Commissioner of Juvenile Operations. During the March 2025 City Council hearing, it was noted that 394 staff members, including 288 who had resigned, had left the agency during Commissioner Holmes’s term.

Allegation of misleading the City Council for an op-ed published under her name in October 2024, which she denied that she had anything to do with the article during the city council hearing, claiming a PR firm wrote it without her knowledge. In March 2025, the New York Daily News reported that DOP paid the PR firm, Mercury Public Affairs, $38,000, and the firm indicated that “they worked closely with the commissioner and her team to help craft and submit the op-ed.”

In July and August 2025, both the New York Daily News and The City Newspaper reported a 19% jump in rearrests of probationers. The City further detailed an increase in technical violations for non-criminal offences. As written, “From fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2024, the number of technical violations issued by probation officers to youth clients rose by 30%, while violations among adults increased by 50%. Rearrest rates also ticked up during that time: In March 2025, 35% of adults and 30% of juveniles on probation had been re-arrested, both up slightly from the prior year”.

Excessive spending: The City Controller’s Office found that DOP failed to comply with procurement rules when the department purchased a $87,000 Ford Expedition Platinum for Holmes, despite reducing funding for youth mentoring programs.  

Cut valuable youth programs from the DOP budget: After nine months in office, Holmes cut programs that have been proven to be beneficial and prosperous. Members of the City Council have classified this decision as “backwards”. Holmes cut $1 million from the ARCHES mentoring program. ARCHES works with at-risk youth between the ages of 16 and 24. She further eliminated funding for Next STEPS, which offers one-on-one and group mentoring with a cognitive approach to young adults. Holmes did not spare the Impact Program from the chopping block; it was terminated.  Impact is a youth and family program that provides services through mentoring, family engagement, and skill development.

Staff shortages and Officer turnover: In May 2024, the state Comptroller’s Office disclosed that DOP had the highest turnover rate among all the city agencies. In July 2025, DOP reported more than 200 unfilled vacancies for probation officers, leading to higher caseloads for officers left behind. According to Dalvanie Powell, president of the United Probation Officers Association, “overworked and pushed to the brink, with some handling cases across multiple boroughs on the same day”. 

The New York City Council, to its credit, has repeatedly called Holmes to appear for hearings on budgeting and oversight to account for her management style; however, she has retained her position as a commissioner. Following the July 2025 hearing, and amid growing media criticism and internal leaks, Holmes’s office sent two memos to staff in August 2025. One memo reminded employees of the department’s policy against speaking with reporters, while the other prohibited the use of unauthorized USB drives. Despite several local news coverage and the City Council’s hearings on Holmes’ management style and ongoing problems with DOP, Mayor Adams has not raised public concerns about her and/or the direction she is leading the department.

The Complicated Question of Race – A Different Standard?

With all this lingering turmoil created by Holmes, the question is, “Should breaking the barriers be a free pass to breaking probation?”. Would the public, the press, the City Council, and employees of DOP be hesitant to accuse a white person/white male as racist, sexist, toxic, and oppressive commissioner if that white person took the same action that Holmes has taken? What would have happened if Commissioner Horn or Schiraldi, who had served the department before Holmes’s administration, had implemented the same policies or actions? What criticism would they have faced? A white person’s action would have been examined through historical and systematic racial lenses. Imagine a white commissioner eliminating programs such as ARCHES, Next STEPS, and the Impact program that are deemed beneficial to people with low incomes and the minority communities through employment opportunities and support services they provide. It would have created controversies that extend beyond the limited space in which this issue is discussed. The accusation would have been labelled as racially motivated if almost 400 staff of color left the agency as a result of low morale under a white commissioner who came in with an authoritarian management style. There would have been public outcry, action, and debates, which may have triggered public protests, accountability from the mayor’s office, and possibly a demand for resignation. The complaint from these stakeholders would not just be framed under mistreatment but as discrimination based on race, class and gender. The media coverage would have extended beyond local news to major newspapers like The New York Times, and the coverage would have focused more on the racial and discriminatory intent behind the policy implemented.

Why use racism?

Racism may be historically associated with white supremacy, but discriminatory behavior is not exclusive to a particular group. Many people may believe that racism is only based on skin color, but it is more complex than skin color. A person of color with institutional power may hold prejudiced/discriminatory behavior similar to racism. A person of color can have biases, Prejudice, and practice discrimination that mirrors the very racism they themselves condemn. The Prejudice wielded by a person of color against others can have the same brutal consequences as racism.

The Union’s Puzzling Shift – An Ally Turned Critic?

The internal politics within the probation department inflame the matter. The union should stand by its members and anticipate the potential issues that may negatively impact them. The Union President, Dalvanie Powell, was a staunch supporter of Commissioner Holms and praised her leadership as well as the new policy she began to implement upon her arrival. Powell defended Holmes after the City Council expressed concerns about the commissioner canceling funding for mentoring programs that serve youth and implementing these mini-police force policies. According to a Daily News article published in January 2024, Powell was quoted as saying, “I have never heard of those programs. Being a woman in authority, especially a person of color, it seems like we’re more criticized. Every step we make is constantly criticized”. Referring to Holmes, Powell further noted, “She just got here. Some people have a problem with change. They call news reporters. She hasn’t had a chance.” Powell used race to shield the commissioner from criticism. Still, when she reversed her position and became critical, her analysis no longer addressed the issue through a racial lens.

Sidelining My Concern

At the initial stage, some staff began to raise alarms about the new policy that Holms was enforcing on the staff and the community the department was supposed to serve. I personally approached Powell to express my concern about the commissioner’s requirement that every officer carry a gun and wear a uniform. On August 4, 2023, the commissioner’s first chief of staff sent an email to probation officers stating that every officer would be required to carry firearms beginning October 1, 2023. I spoke to Powell on the same day, and she indicated to me that she was scheduled to meet with the commissioner and her team on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. She stated that the commissioner and her team are willing to work with the union, and she would follow up with me on the meeting’s outcome. Powell did not return my call or send an email to members regarding the outcome of the meeting with the commissioner.

On August 10, 2023, I called Powell to inquire about the outcome of the meeting and whether she planned to hold a general meeting with the members. She nonchalantly told me that she had met with the commissioner, and there is no exemption – all officers must carry a firearm and wear a full uniform. I reiterated to Powell that when I came to the department, Probation officers were not required to carry a gun. I again reminded her that in 2003, the department started arming probation officers under the commissioner Horn administration. Since it was optional at the time of the implementation, I declined to carry a firearm. Powell’s advice was simple: file for disability if you cannot carry a gun. I then asked, “disability?”. She responded, it means that you are unable to fully do the job of a probation officer.  When I further probed her to explain the reason I needed to claim disability when I have been doing my job adequately for over 20 years without the need to carry a weapon or wear a uniform. Powell responded that there is a Probation Officer in another borough who is over 70 years old and has just qualified to carry a firearm; she was not complaining.  

Was Powell’s response to my concern a form of advocacy or a dismissal of my concerns dressed up as advice, suggesting that I sideline myself? According to Powell, the problem was not the policy itself, but rather my objection to it. My concern was insignificant, especially given that I was one of the few African immigrants within the department.

Powell Joined the Critic Side

What changed Powell to move from the supportive side of Holmes’s management style to the critical side? On March 7, 2025, during a New York City Council budget hearing, Powell dishes out her dissatisfaction with the commissioner’s management style. Why did she support Holms’ punitive policy for two years, suddenly blasting Holms for staff shortages, favoritism, mismanagement, and chaos within the department, and diminishing morale? I believe the discontent finally hit home, and injustice only becomes injustice when it affects the right people worth fighting for. Until then, those raising early warnings and concerns were just background noise. 

Same Accountability Matters: 

A woman of color or a black woman, who society deemed categorically as having two disadvantages based on her gender and race, could implement these policies, and then the narrative shifts. Prejudice, biases, and discrimination are not words used in describing injustice perpetrated by a person of color or a Black person. The uncomfortable truth is that people of color are just as capable of prejudice, discrimination and injustice as any other group. Whether we are talking about Black on Black crime, Black discrimination against other Blacks because of social class, gender, officers of color brutalizing other people of color, or immigrants experiencing discrimination from different people of color as a result of country of origin, language they speak, religion, or class. If society pretends otherwise, then we are undermining and distorting the very concept of justice itself. To truthfully proclaim accountability, society must abstain from race and identity in evaluating leadership. Although representation and breaking barriers are meaningful, society must not shy away from criticizing unjust acts, regardless of one’s race or gender, on an equal level. As a society, we should not risk creating another form of injustice because some leaders are untouchable, not because of what they do, but rather who they are.  

Societal Responsibility:

The mission of probation is to provide pathways to rehabilitation, rather than increased policing. What we, as a society, truly want from our collective criminal justice system is a balance between law enforcement and rehabilitation. The primary role of a police officer is to ensure public safety, respond to emergencies, and prevent crime. Police officers wear uniforms, carry a handgun, a baton, and a radio, which allows the public to recognize them, identify them as a public authority, deter crime, and establish their authority to enforce the law. Probation officers already know their clients, and they have established a professional relationship with them. They do not need to wear a uniform, carry a gun, or a baton to work with clients on rehabilitation. Sometimes, there are situations that warrant carrying a gun and a radio. The department established the FSU (Field Supervision Unit) to provide supervision for high-risk cases. Both the Department of Probation and the population it serves deserve a system and a leader that is rooted in fairness, humanity, and accountability, one that transcends beyond race, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.