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Is anyone watching state parolees?

By Paul Muschick | Of The Morning Call
July 23, 2009

One killed a Philadelphia police officer. The other attacked a woman in her Easton home.

What they have in common, besides being thugs, is that they were on state parole at the time.

Not every parolee returns to a life of crime when he's sprung. But these guys are proof that parolees can be dangerous and should be watched closely.

That's what makes last month's report from the state auditor general's office so disturbing.

Watchdog It found state parole agents failed to report missing parolees quickly or search for them after they'd disappeared. Meanwhile, there wasn't evidence proving supervisors had reviewed some cases. In other cases, auditors found supervisors signed off on inadequate work by agents.

Those lapses could jeopardize citizens' safety, the report says, and make it easier for parole violators to stay on the loose.

The Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole rebutted the findings and rejected recommendations to improve performance.

That's not a shock, considering the report suggests the board wasn't crazy about auditors poking around, providing ''untimely and inadequate responses'' and failing to provide any information in some instances.

The board questioned the skills of the auditor general's office and accused it of jumping to conclusions after inadequate research.

The verbatim rebuttal is in the audit report on my blog at http://blogs.mcall.com/watchdog/ .

The audit challenges the performance of both parole agents and their bosses.

Agents are supposed to report a parolee missing within two days, which then should lead to police obtaining an arrest warrant.

Random case reviews by the auditor general's office found several instances where that didn't occur, including one that wasn't reported for 53 days.

Once a parolee is considered ''absconded,'' agents must try to locate them him every three months. Auditors reviewed 92 quarterly records for 13 absconded parolees. They found no evidence that searches had been conducted in 70 of those quarters.

The board said auditors looked at too small a sample of cases, and said the proper measure of agents' oversight is the average number of days an absconder is at large.

That fell from 206 days in 2003 to 121 days in 2007.

The board points out that in May 2008, 4.2 percent of parolees were considered absconded, down from 6.5 percent of parolees in 2001.

''A proper methodological review would have shown the undeniable truth: the board's absconder rate has dropped dramatically,'' it said in its response.

It's great the numbers are dropping, especially considering the number of parolees is rising. Maybe today's ex-cons are better-behaved.

The point the auditors were trying to make is there are problems in reacting to those who do skip town. The board of probation and parole didn't challenge the cases that were highlighted. Instead, it went into a statistical rant.

Yes, it's a small sample. But it only takes one parolee with bad intentions to change a life.

Just ask the family of the dead Philadelphia police officer and the Easton woman who was attacked in her home.