AUDIT REVEALS TENNESSEE BOARD OF PROBATION AND PAROLE LISTS INCLUDE 82 DEAD PEOPLE (but they're so much easier to monitor!)

             Yesterday's copy of The Tennessean (motto: "The Titans are almost as bad as the Vols... We got nothing...") landed with a splash at the end of our driveway, and one of the more interesting stories involved an audit of our state's Board of Probation and Parole.
            
             An audit of a department of corrections division with an $86 million budget is usually a fairly dry document to report on, but this one had a few interesting tidbits of information in it.  For instance, did you know that dead people are much easier to monitor for parole violations than living offenders?

            Parole officers routinely reported having contact with 82 offenders who have moved on to that great Parole Board in the Sky.  One report listed contact with a guy who had, in fact, been dead since 1993, which made me wonder if our parole officers are actually making contact or are simply using a Ouija Board from the office. 

          A spokesperson for the state admitted that "inadequate supervision" of parole officers was the root cause for these obvious falsifications of records, and that "tax payer resources were used in an ungrateful way."

            Rest assured, though, the state takes its responsibilities seriously, because the department is promising "all staff will be trained to better detect deceased offenders" in the future.

            I suggest holding a mirror under the nose of anyone suspected of having died.