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Friday's letters: Probation officers shortchanged

 
Published March 31, 2016

Scott promptly signs $82B budget | March 18

Probation officers shortchanged

One of the main roles of government is to provide public safety. In this, once again, the Legislature and governor have failed.

The Department of Corrections was in desperate need of more correctional officers, but the request was denied and in fact the DOC budget was reduced from last year.

One division of the DOC is the oversight of felony probation and parole offenders who are under court-ordered supervision. State probation officers are required to have a four-year college degree, the highest level of education for any certified officer under Florida Department of Law Enforcement standards, but they are the lowest-paid of any law enforcement officers in the state.

The starting salary for a certified state probation officer is $33,478 after completion of the state academy and becoming a certified officer. Probation and parole officers must purchase their own firearms and share hand-me-down vehicles. They have no radio equipment to be in contact with local law enforcement.

These officers supervise often dangerous felons, including sex offenders and drug dealers. They serve and protect citizens, usually unseen. The turnover rate is high due to lack of compensation, creating a revolving door in training of new officers at the academy.

The Legislature refuses to adequately fund this agency, but in the Tampa Bay area alone this past session it appropriated more than $58 million for theaters, parks, libraries and other nonessential items.

Thomas Bride, Palm Harbor

The writer is a retired probation and parole officer supervisor.

Fighting war on foreign soil can sometimes bring the front home | March 27, Perspective

Apologist for Islamism

This article is a fine example of pure propaganda by an Islamist apologist. Arun Kundnani hints that the residents of Brussels may have earned the suicide bombings because of the West's bombing in the Middle East. Belgium is not a participant in any bombing in Syria or Iraq.

The author blames Western globalization and Islamophobia for the actions of these terrorists. Yet other recently industrializing countries such as India and China are not producing suicide bombers and terrorists.

He ignores the fact that the majority of armed conflicts in the world today are between Muslim societies and their neighbors. The terrorists who destroyed the twin towers in New York City were urban, well-educated Saudi citizens who never suffered from Western bombing, globalization or Islamophobia.

While we must guard against racism and profiling, Westerners have the right to be safe.

Leo Cain, Clearwater

Give voters a say on court | March 29, commentary

Excuses don't hold up

In reading Sen. Orrin Hatch's column, one at first glance would think that it was the president who was being appointed to a life position on the Supreme Court. Hatch displays the usual vitriol that has characterized the Republican Party over the last decade, but offers little to support why Republicans in the Senate cannot carry out their constitutional duty by holding hearings and voting on the nomination.

The president has bent over backward in selecting someone on the conservative side of his party in order to avoid a charge of attempting to stack the court with a true liberal. This obviously has not moved these senators led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, who vowed from the beginning of the Barack Obama presidency to obstruct all of the president's proposals. To this day they question the legitimacy of this president and the majority of the Americans who elected him twice. But then what would one expect from the party of Donald Trump.

Rene Tamargo, Tampa

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Sen. Orrin Hatch, in his salute to the jurisprudence of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, excoriates the president for "contempt" of constitutional principles and exceeding the scope of his constitutional authority. He somehow uses these apparent sins to justify the Republican Senate leadership's refusal to deal with the nominee to replace Scalia.

I'm certain that Scalia, the so-called originalist interpreter of the Constitution, must be turning in his grave as the Republicans squirm to justify their intransigence. One can read the Constitution dozens of times and never find the words "let the voters decide" in the language of Section 2 of Article II.

And the Constitution certainly doesn't call for a delay in considering nominations "in the midst of a toxic presidential election" (Hatch's words).

Donald Rosselet, Dunnellon

Policy, not the personal | March 28, letter

Country's real problems

The writer cited political correctness as one of this country's biggest problems. What happened to global warming, immigration and jobs?

I also don't agree that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are acting "Obama-like." The president, while campaigning or in office, has never displayed such behavior. Although given the disrespect he's received, I'm surprised he hasn't given a little of what he's gotten.

Mary Sims, Tampa