North Carolina's probation system ought to put a firm squeeze on bad guys. While they have finished their prison sentences or may deserve another chance before going to prison, they have been convicted of crimes. The public has a right to be protected from people who are trying to show that they can be trusted with freedom. Careful supervision is in the offenders' best interest as well.

Yet that kind of supervision is not being provided consistently across the state, largely because the General Assembly has failed to give the Department of Correction and the courts the resources to ensure a modern, workable probation system. The situation -- described Sunday by The N&O's Anne Blythe and Sarah Ovaska -- is nothing short of scandalous.

Recently, the problems have been spotlighted by arrests in the slayings of students Eve Carson of UNC-Chapel Hill and Abhijit Mahato of Duke University.

One of the two suspects accused in Carson's death, Demario James Atwater, 21, was on probation for other crimes and had been arrested in the meantime on a gun possession charge, which should have sent him to jail. Instead, it took months for courts and probation officers in several Triangle counties to start the revocation process.

The other person charged in the Carson case, Laurence Alvin Lovette, 17, was released early from a juvenile sentence and within months was charged with misdemeanor counts. But state law doesn't allow prosecutors to view juvenile records, so authorities in Durham put Lovette on probation. That was in January, the same month Mahato was murdered. Lovette is charged in that killing as well.

Out of the loop

Across North Carolina, a crack in the justice system in one county often is felt in a county nearby. The state's courts and agencies are saddled with creaky technology that doesn't allow for effective, timely communication between judicial and law enforcement personnel.

That lets criminals who should be picked up on probation violations, for instance, remain free to roam the streets and sometimes commit worse crimes. As ridiculous as it seems, the fact is that people on probation who are charged with further law-breaking -- crimes that should send them back to prison -- sometimes are responsible for reporting their own arrest. Is it any wonder when they don't get around to it? State Supreme Court justices from both ends of the political spectrum have pleaded with the legislature to put more money into the courts, with better computers a high priority, but funding has been inadequate.

Crushed with cases

Meanwhile, in the Division of Community Corrections, 2,012 certified officers supervise 128,000 people on probation, parole, community service and other post-prison custody. In Durham last year, probation officers overseeing high-risk offenders sometimes had caseloads of 98, far above the 60 set by law and clearly an impossible number of people to look after thoroughly. For at least half of last year, Wake County officers assigned to more violent offenders had caseloads averaging 109.

Turnover among probation officers is high, which is understandable from the point of burnout alone. Officers must go into tough neighborhoods, for instance, and are responsible for such disagreeable tasks as collecting urine for drug tests. Yet salaries are between $32,000 and $50,000, and there is no provision for merit pay.

It will be no surprise, then, if overworked probation officers, in the dark about what the courts and juvenile authorities had done with Atwater and Lovette, dropped the ball on adequately supervising them.

Certainly lawmakers shouldn't be surprised. Since 2004, when it ordered a review of problems with community corrections, the legislature has received annual updates of the division's performance. Some of the problems have persisted. They need to be fixed as soon as possible, whether or not Atwater and Lovette are guilty as charged. The probation system must be given enough staff and equipment, especially computers, to effectively oversee people who have shown a willingness to break the law and may well continue to put the public at risk.