With Alabama prisons packed to overcrowding and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles facing a backlog of 2,500 cases because officials can't locate victims of violent offenders to notify of parole hearings, something has to give.

Clearly, the parole board can begin catching up on its cases - and prison officials can make more room for the most serious offenders - if the strict victim notification procedures required by state law are relaxed somewhat.

Things were on track for just that until state Sen. Roger Bedford got involved.

A bill approved by the Alabama House of Representatives offered plenty of concessions to the law, originally passed in 1984, that the parole board notify victims before a hearing could be held:

The parole board no longer would have to contact unnamed customers in robberies that occur in businesses, and the board could contact employees of such businesses at a last known address.

After a victim has been notified once and requests no further contact, the board could stop notifications for subsequent hearings.

If the board has made a serious effort to notify a victim but fails to get a good address, the board doesn't have to repeat those same efforts for subsequent hearings.

Though victims advocates fought hard for the 1984 bill requiring notification, they and the parole board and the Alabama Sentencing Commission agreed on the changes in the bill.

But then Bedford, D-Russellville, tacked on an amendment when the bill went through the Senate Judiciary Committee that basically lets the parole board off the hook in trying to locate victims.

Bedford's amendment would simply require the board to send notices to the last-known address of a victim - even if that last-known address was years old. That might mean some victims, especially victims of crimes older than the 1984 notification law, would never be informed of a parole hearing.

Thanks to Bedford's unnecessary meddling, victims advocates now oppose the revised notification bill, and they should. Unless the wrongheaded Bedford amendment is stripped, lawmakers should reject this bill.

History and at least one high-profile case have shown that unless the parole board is compelled by law or public pressure, it can do a poor job of notifying victims.

It may be difficult to find some victims, but lawmakers should see how the agreed-to changes to the notification law work before allowing the parole board to get by simply with sending a notice to an address that may not be current.

A little diligence by parole officials in trying to find victims of violent crimes before their attackers are let off their sentences early is not too much to ask. In the effort to ease prison overcrowding, victims of the crimes must not be overlooked.

Lawmakers should approve the notification bill without Bedford's amendment - or they should kill it altogether.

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