A look at South Carolina's broken probation and parole system Georgetown County Sheriff Land Cribb works at the scene of Julianne Blakeley's killing in Litchfield Beach on Sept. 26, 2007. Police later arrested Shane Earl Lawshe, a convicted felon released on parole two months earlier, for the crime. Julianne Blakeley did what many do when they need their homes painted. She hired a contractor. And, as with most homeowners, she knew almost nothing about the painters she invited in. On the … [Read more...]

S.C. legislative leaders said Thursday that Gov. Mark Sanford should be spending more time coming up with suggested budget cuts instead of flying around the state calling for them. Sanford flew to stops at Highway Patrol offices in Florence and Greenville and a Probation and Parole Department office in Greenville to get the public involved in what promises to be a long battle over how to deal with a budget shortfall. Last week, the state Budget and Control Board, which Sanford chairs, voted … [Read more...]

It was back in May of 2005, when Debbie Spry called cops to report her 17 year old son Travis was missing. Ms. Spry said officers told her they could only take a missing persons report because Travis was 17. "I just told them I wanted to know whether he's alive and safe, but they said there was nothing they could do," she recalled. It turned out Travis was not alive. He was found strangled to death. … [Read more...]

The goal of any good government should be to foster the trust of the public in the work it is doing. As simple as this concept seems, its implementation has been made harder by the cloak of secrecy that seems to cover even the most basic legislative transactions. No decision made in the dark garners the trust of the people. Whether its roots lie in benign neglect fostered by practices from long ago or in more insidious reasons, what our government does is a mystery to the average South … [Read more...]

Since its creation in 1975, the state Legislative Audit Council has recommended efficiencies and cost savings worth many millions to the benefit of taxpaying South Carolinians. The state should be proud that the LAC's work has been acknowledged as the best in the nation. The 2008 Excellence in Evaluation Award from the National Legislative Program Evaluation Society specifically recognizes the agency's good work for the last four years. But the LAC's accomplishments extend nearly to its … [Read more...]

Some question absence of roll call on some bills Trying to track down a legislator's voting record might be a little like chasing Bigfoot: First, you have to find out if it really exists. Open-government advocates argue the state Legislature's lack of roll-call votes — revealed in a new study — is designed so that legislators have "plausible deniability" when comes to taking a stance on controversial bills. South Carolina's legislative leaders, though, say they and their colleagues want … [Read more...]

Citing steep cuts in the S.C. State Ports Authority’s container business, the top state senator suggested today that the authority consider privatizing a portion of its operations. “I think the time has come to really look at this,” Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said after a meeting of Charleston County lawmakers charged with overseeing the SPA. During the meeting, McConnell directed SPA executives to study the issue and report their findings to him. After the … [Read more...]