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MA: Boston Globe Editorial: Let Patrick oversee probation, to link with parole, corrections

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Globe Editorial The Boston Globe Let Patrick oversee probation, to link with parole, corrections February 6, 2011 IN SMOOTHLY functioning courts, probation officers serve as the eyes and ears of the judges, helping to determine which offenders need to be behind bars and which can rehabilitate themselves on their own. The best probation officers and the best judges share an unspoken bond of trust. To Massachusetts judges, this crucial relationship depends on keeping probation officers under their administrative control ? having probation officers report to the governor, as Governor Patrick has proposed, would place the probation department and the judiciary on different tracks, pulling in different directions. There?s a problem with this thesis, though: The recent scandal in the probation department, in which officers were systematically hired based on their political ties, came under the aegis of the judiciary...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on February 06, 2011 (boomark / email).