Senate votes for probation reform

Submitted by bniolet on May 13, 2009 - 4:03pm.
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A bill that would give probation officers access to juvenile court records and broader leeway in doing warrantless searches sailed through the state Senate with little discussion.

The proposed bill, part of a probation system reform package recommended by Gov. Beverly Perdue, still must clear the House, Anne Blythe reports.

The proposal, introduced by Sen. Tony Rand, a Democrat from Fayetteville, comes after a series of articles in The News & Observer detailed a probation system rife with supervision problems.

High vacancies forced officers to carry perilously high caseloads, resulting in botched oversight of many cases and 13,000 missing offenders. Since 2000, 580 probationers killed while under state supervision. Since then, Perdue has made management changes. She also has recommended spending nearly $24.2 million over the next two years to hire 175 more officers.

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Re: Senate votes for probation reform

Submitted by PaulTerrell on May 13, 2009 - 11:04pm.

Of course this idea was stolen by Rand.

Did you expect that one of the DEMOCRATIC leaders whose leadership that has led us into this mess, could actually come with the answers on his own?

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Originally a Republican proposal

Submitted by PoliticalJunkie on May 13, 2009 - 4:51pm.

These reforms were initially proposed by republicans in response to an N&O series on the probation system. Phil Berger introduced legislation to address these problems.

Tony Rand grabbed the bill, tweaked it slightly, and made it his own to make sure when you reporters wrote about it a Democrat would get all the credit with nary a mention of the Republican efforts to shed light on the problem and produce a solid set of reforms to address the problems.

And of course his plan worked. Oh well. Here is a link to Berger's bill.

This is pretty regular move by Rand and his Democrat friends and it almost always works. I believe it is one of the reasons most citizens can't point to any "achievements" by Republican Legislators - the Democrats steal their good ideas and the credit for them with a complicit media assisting.

Here is Dome's initial report on the Republican proposal.

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