North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Seven inmates were killed and many others were wounded during a prison riot in South Carolina on Sunday night.  Columbia newspaper The State reports that a disagreement over gang territory and contraband erupted into a massive and violent fight that spanned three dormitories at Lee Correctional Institution, a maximum-security facility located between Columbia and Florence.  The report from The State paints a bleak picture of Lee Correctional and other South Carolina prisons, saying that the state’s prisons as a whole “are rife with violence, illegal weapons, and gangs.”  The incident is the nation’s deadliest prison riot in 25 years.  Keep reading for more news.

For felony sentencing, a defendant’s criminal history is scored as a “prior record level.” The analogous measure for misdemeanor sentencing is “prior conviction level.” There are important differences between the two measures.