Occupation / job
Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
At $66,270 against a $50,020 midpoint, Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists pays $16,250 a year more than the typical American job — $7.81 an hour. Nothing pays that much more for free, and the thing it is paid for is what you should be reading about.
89,390 people are employed in this work. Big enough for a real market in every major metro, small enough that experience in Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists is still a distinguishing thing to have.
Counselling and social work suit people who can hold a caseload of problems they cannot fix and still come back on Monday. Emotional stamina is the binding constraint, not credentials.
No verified preparation time is on file for Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn below $54,250 and a quarter above $84,780: a 1.6x ratio, $30,530 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.
The 25th percentile is $54,250, $4,230 above the $50,020 typical American job. A floor above the national midpoint is rare, and it is worth more than an equivalent amount of upside.
Avoid it if you need to fix things. Most of this caseload cannot be fixed by anyone at your desk.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 89,390 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
A 1.6x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $66,270 as where you might be after years in Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists, and $54,250 as where you would start.
Put in money rather than ratios: $54,250 at the 25th percentile, $66,270 at the midpoint, $84,780 at the 75th. $30,530 separates the quarter of Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $54,250 and $84,780 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $66,270. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $18,510; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $30,530.
$18,510 separates $66,270 from the $84,780 top quarter, while only $12,020 separates it from $54,250. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $31.86 at the midpoint for Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists, $26.08 at the 25th percentile and $40.75 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $66,270 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
The hourly number on this page is $66,270 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else