Stories by Anna Gray

Being convicted of a state crime was one thing, but a federal crime? That was something else altogether.

First of all, the sheer amount of paperwork required by the feds was intimidating. Winnie Chapin fanned the stack of pages attached to a beat-up clipboard. A federal probation officer, Agent Riley, had instructed her to fill out this “Presentence Report, Federal District Court of Georgia—Character Witness” before her interview. That was another thing about the feds: their probation officers were trim, neatly dressed F.B.I. agents with close-cropped crew cuts—a far cry from the doughy, indifferent social workers that handled probation for the state courts.