Editorial: An issue of public safety

Tuesday, July 11, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

Earlier this year Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada American Civil Liberties Union, spoke to the Las Vegas Sun about the state's "broken parole and probation system." In a story about prison overcrowding, he commented that the Parole Board was too harsh, that it was keeping too many inmates in prison beyond the time they could be released.

For the state, this may be a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Keeping inmates locked up beyond their possible release time contributes to prison overcrowding. But releasing them before their full sentences have been served contributes to the stress of the understaffed Parole and Probation Department.

In Southern Nevada there are 160 parole and probation officers who have full peace-officer status, meaning they are authorized to carry concealed weapons and make arrests. But on any given week there are about 1,500 parolees, many of them with violent pasts and who are considered "high risk."

Additional duties for the officers include monitoring the 6,700 people who are on probation at any given time, checking on more than 160 sex offenders who have been sentenced to "lifetime" supervision and assisting other law enforcement agencies as needed.

It wasn't altogether surprising, given the department's workload, that a state audit last year found that the department was not adequately supervising dangerous criminals.

The department has shown improvement since then by reconfiguring the schedules and duties of its officers and by giving higher priority to those ex-cons considered to be the most dangerous. Nevertheless, the department remains on overload and as such falls well short of ideal performance.

Negotiations are under way to increase the department's statewide budget of just under $42 million. John Gonska, a longtime probation officer who became the department's deputy chief in 2004 and was named chief in January, says the reception to a higher budget has so far been positive among legislators and state officials.

Gonska said his department is asking for "quite a few positions" as well as more equipment. He said the department's vehicles are really old, with many lacking emergency lights and cages to separate suspects from officers. He said officers lack hand-held radios and that there is no overtime budget.

In our view, public safety is at risk when parole officers are assigned 75 to 85 cases apiece, when subjective judgments have to be made about which felons are less dangerous than other felons and when officers are not provided proper equipment. We hope the positive reception Gonska is receiving as he asks for a higher budget holds true through the 2007 legislative session.