Civic Dispatch: Off the Clock - Balancing Care and Code in Jasper
by Micah Adams
A sharp rapping at the front door alerts the family to a visitor. The woman at the door is employed by the Jasper Public Works Office, and she steps into the house to talk to the family. The grandparents are home, but the mother and father are out, leaving the young second grade boy as the only English speaker. But he already knows what she is there for: a neighbor must have reported their dog. Although the dog is enclosed in a fence, he is thin– and likely neglected– or at least underfed. This wouldn’t be the first time one of their family pets had been seized by the city.
The boy lifts his head and asks, “Are you going to take my dog?” Her commanding presence seems to answer the boy’s question for him. She’s strong with short gray hair – clearly a force to be reckoned with. But when she speaks, her authority is softened by a warm, Southern accent. She responds gently, “No, sir. I’m going to teach you how to take care of him, so I don’t have to take him.”
Officer Robin Jackson has accumulated an impressive portfolio of animal experience over the past three decades. For twenty-five years, she ran Sumiton Animal Clinic while concurrently managing a rescue shelter. From there, she spent two years working for Cornerstone Gundog Academy ensuring placed orders were fulfilled. Today, she serves on the Board of Directors for ‘Forgotten Tails,’ a non-profit spay/neuter clinic that is also in the process of organizing a food bank to provide low-income citizens with food for their pets. Outside these endeavors, her full-time job for the past two years has been the City of Jasper’s Animal Enforcement Officer. When she is not out responding to calls, she works from the Jasper Annexation Office, which is where I had the privilege of meeting Officer Robin for the first time.
This summer, I am spending my time in Jasper working through the Jean O’Connor Snyder Internship Program (JOIP). As a JOIP intern in Jasper, Alabama, I am working through the Walker Area Community Foundation and the University of Alabama’s New College to complete various economic development projects for Walker County. My official placement is with the City Planner out of the Annexation Office, which is how I first met and subsequently shadowed Officer Jackson. Over the course of the five hours I spent with her, I was able to see the daily sustainable impact she creates for the Jasper area as she performs her daily job.
When responding to calls, Jackson describes, “Anytime I go out, my first thing is to assess the situation, as far as, is it a poverty situation? Is it an ignorance situation? Some people don't know some of the simple laws or simple things to take care of their animals, so I always opt to keep the animal in the home. The only time I seize one is just for gross neglect.” The city of Jasper houses citizens from different cultures, backgrounds, and even countries. This adds education to the enforcement part of Officer Robin’s duties.
In recognition of this, Officer Robin goes well above and beyond her job responsibilities. She selflessly offers her own time and resources to keep as many animals in their homes as she can. Along with educating the public on various regulations and spaying and neutering practices, Jackson intentionally comes alongside citizens to meet their needs in every way she can. She has delivered elderly citizens’ pets to and from the vet for them. She has bought and constructed kennels for families on her weekends. She delivers dog food to members of the community, and even personally housed and medically treated as many as sixty dogs at one time in a unit she built behind her home. She strives to teach the dogs she encounters how to trust again, spending up to two hours on a hot curb allowing them to become familiar with her.
Although Officer Robin’s title seems oriented toward engaging animals, her duty as Animal Enforcement Officer is multi-faceted. She describes her time as a 50/50 split between caring for animals and caring for Jasper residents, revealing that the job’s duties often put her in close contact with homeless or impoverished citizens. Thus, she spends much of her time caring for citizens even outside the context of attending to their pets. Officer Robin detailed one instance in which a woman’s home was torn down due to unsafe structure violations. When she went to visit the woman, Jackson noticed a mobile home unit in the wooded area behind the foundation. Thus, in order to protect the woman from homelessness, she took it upon herself to transform the unit into a home by cleaning it, adding a heater and AC window unit, and adding furniture.
Officer Robin’s ties to the community run deep. In the 21 months she has been here, she has formed and maintained constant relationships with members of the community. She is a friendly face to all as she makes her rounds, even when a household is seemingly in violation of the law. Jackson states that while performing her job, “I don’t ever come out as a force. I come out as a friend. I try to understand their shortcomings because, you know, everybody's got a story, and you know you have to …weed through the whole thing to find the truth. But each person can be met on their level, and… it changes the whole perspective on how they react to you.” Even the dogs know Officer Robin as an ally; a Doberman and a few pit bulls would listen for her truck and come for blocks to see her and receive treats.
There is a delicate balance between compassion and the need to enforce the city’s laws in Officer Robin’s roles. But through using her own time, money, and resources and teaching citizens how to properly care for their pets, just like she did with the young boy, Jackson makes it possible to employ empathy. She states, “I give the kindness and compassion till it becomes a place where I cannot. So if you, if it becomes a situation where, clearly, you're just absolutely not gonna do any of [my recommendations], I kind of pull the plug on the kindness and compassion and move forward with what has to happen from a legal standpoint.”
This is only possible for a figure as integrated in the Jasper community as Officer Robin is. In the case of a neglected black lab without any water or shade, city law dictated this would qualify as gross neglect. Jackson had befriended the owner, however, and knew that he had broken both his legs. Thus, she built a shade structure for the dog and enlisted a nearby neighbor to fill up water buckets that she left at the front of his driveway. She speculates, “Our way of life has become very isolated, and nobody is kind to anybody. But I'll go out. I'll ask whoever. I'm not bashful, you know, ‘Can you step up and do this for me so I can help this person?’ And more times than not, they're willing.”
Photo Credit: Walker Area Community Foundation
Micah is a student at The University of Alabama majoring in Economics and Legal History and is a member of the Witt University Fellows Program.
This summer, Micah worked with the City of Jasper, Alabama in the city planning office. During his internship, he reviewed annexation files to track when and how different parcels became part of the city—an important step in understanding Jasper’s growth and development.