Reconsider parole for violent criminals
OUR VIEW
When the state announced it would be opening a LIFE Tech center here in Thomasville to guide paroled criminals through a rehabilitation and training program prior to their release, it was stated that the state needed to make more room for violent criminals in its prisons.

What many of us around Thomasville read into that statement is that the violent criminals would be in prison, and non-violent ones would be the ones headed to the LIFE Tech center. But a review of the reporting in The Thomasville Times and Clarke County Democrat this week showed that state officials seemingly never made that second point.

And we understand that Mark Daniel Melvin is not the first violent offender to be sent to the LIFE Tech center.

We certainly question the wisdom of the state's pardons and paroles board in letting a man convicted of a violent and bloody double murder free.

And while it may come as a shock to some of us in the community that such offenders are being sent to the LIFE Tech center, it's either that or set them straight out onto the street when it comes to the parole board's options.

We would choose the third option, keep them in jail.

Regardless of how we may feel right now, the LIFE Tech center is here and doing its work. Many citizens in this community are even volunteering to help the center do its job, but we urge the pardons and paroles board to seriously reconsider how it approaches the issue of dealing with prisoners convicted of violent crimes.

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