Corrections Secretary James Crosby responded quickly and decisively to a debacle in his agency's probation division. He fired four employees, including supervisors, whom he found responsible for allowing Troy Victorino to walk free despite opportunities to have him arrested on a probation violation. Victorino is accused of being the ringleader of the worst mass slaying in the state in years.
Crosby's actions demonstrate seriousness about addressing any laxity that has crept into the system. The department maintains a 48-hour rule for probation violators who are deemed a threat to the community. Once a probation officer is notified that an arrest warrant has been issued against a probationer with a violent past, the officer must forward this information to a judge within two days.
But the department failed to do so in Victorino's case. Despite an outstanding warrant against Victorino for allegedly beating up a man in a dispute over money, Victorino's probation officer didn't have him arrested when he showed up for his regular check-in. That night, the murders occurred.
Crosby said there have been other problems with regional supervisors who failed to enforce the 48-hour rule. When repeated slip-ups result in six people being murdered, firings are justified.
But the tragic case does not necessarily justify a legislative overhaul of the entire probation system.
This is the second high-profile case this year in which a felon allegedly committed a heinous crime after seeming to slip through the cracks of the probation system. In February, 11-year-old Carlie Brucia of Sarasota was abducted and murdered. Joseph P. Smith was charged with the crime. Smith was free at the time despite two probation violations. The Legislature responded then with a stark overreaction, proposing "fixes" that would have stripped judges of discretion and sent far more people back to jail than the state system could absorb. At any given time, more than 150,000 people are under the jurisdiction of the state's probation system.
Smith's violation involved his failure to pay $170 in court costs, and the judge was right not to jail him for it. These types of technical violations are far too numerous to police with constant reimprisonment.
Victorino is another story. He had been imprisoned in the past for a vicious assault against a community college student. Since his release, he was accused of threatening others with harm. When he was again charged with a violent felony, he should have been immediately returned to custody. Rules were in place to do this; they just weren't followed. The Victorino case has raised some disturbing questions about the way in which some probation offices are run. But it is an internal matter that Crosby seems to be handling. Nothing about the case suggests any need for the Legislature to get involved.
