SECURITY SHORTFALLS IN COUNTY STILL MUST BE ADDRESSED

Despite all the recent turmoil, lax security measures keep reemerging as a
persistent theme in all levels of government and in all sectors of the
community. A former Buncombe County employee and convicted felon had been
holding down a county job that enabled her to falsify drug-screening results.

Mable Green was previously convicted of two felony counts of obtaining
property by false pretenses, several misdemeanor convictions for obtaining
prescription drugs by forgery and a federal court conviction for altering
money orders. And yet, under court-ordered community service, she acquired
a job with the Day Reporting Center, was later hired as a secretary and
then promoted to case manager. The Day Reporting Center provides counseling
and education for those on probation. The convicted felon was also
responsible for administering substance-abuse screenings. Last October, she
reported that a probationer tested negative for drugs, even though the test
results came up positive. The favorable outcome was reported to the
probation officer and the fraud was only discovered after the probationer
came clean about the altered test results.

During Green's trial, her defense attorney argued that the test results
were altered in order to calm down the probationer, who lost her cool when
she realized she had tested positive and would face jail time. "She (Green)
was not trained to handle the situation," according to her counsel.

She was well trained and experienced however in falsifying records. Her
supervisors knew that, and still left her to her own devises. The
prosecution's contention that "It's not the system that goes wrong . it's
the people in the system," rings hollow, since it is the supervisory staff
within the system that failed to properly screen the screener.

In handing Green a four-month prison term, 36 months probation and barring
her from holding a government job for three years, Judge Dennis Winner also
turned the trial into an inquest into the county's failure to properly
position and supervise its employee.

"I fault whoever put her in that position with the record she has," Winner
said. "It's hard for me to believe someone with her record could be there."

Indeed it's hard to believe that someone with a history of falsifying
documents was given that level of responsibility without proper supervision.

There's much to be said for the promise of gainful employment and
self-sufficiency. When trying to tackle the issue of recidivism, experience
has shown that employment and personal responsibility often have worked
well. Some kind of safety net must be extended even to convicts if they
appear ready to be nudged back into the ranks of full citizenship. But in
this case, the county exhibited an unwarranted level of trust, was
misguided in its personnel policy and perhaps even negligent.

In addition to being grossly unsettling - this case is a necessary reminder
that especially in these times, law enforcement employees cannot be blindly
accepted simply because they appear to be "dedicated and compassionate," as
this convict's co-workers described her. The county should accept Judge
Winner's admonishment and proceed to attack its security problems, at the
very least, with much more common sense.