The N.C. Department of Corrections has killed again. The blood of the five victims of Patrick Burris covers the hands of state administrators and lawmakers. Obvious, fatal — fatal — flaws in the state’s probation system have gone uncorrected for years now. And we are not talking about rocket science.
Your basic Wal-Mart has a better idea of where every bottle of shampoo is stocked than the state of North Carolina knows the whereabouts of violent repeat offenders ostensibly under state supervision. A relational database of few thousand unique units is utterly routine — except for our probation system, which is still using faxes — faxes — to transmit important, time-sensitive information. Let’s assume government inflation and cost-escalation to the point where it would cost, oh, $10m. to bring the probation system into the 21st century.
We’re building a pier at Nags Head for $25m. We just voted — damn near unanimously, by the way — to give builders a $35m. property tax break on their unsold housing inventory. These are manifestly our priorities, or it would not keep happening.
Stop us before we kill again.
