We previously reported on North Carolina state and county-level criminal charging data. In our earlier report (here) we provided data on charges, charged defendants and charged cases for felonies and misdemeanors, and broke misdemeanors down into non-traffic and traffic offenses. In this report, we present more detailed information about the nature of the felony and misdemeanor charges brought in North Carolina in 2019. For felony offenses, we provide data at the state and county level on, among other things, the number of non-violent and violent felony charges, and separate out drug charges. At the misdemeanor level, we parse the data into still more categories, including breakdowns for, among other things, DWI and related charges, non-DWI traffic charges, ordinance violations, and non-violent and violent misdemeanor charges. There is a lot to unpack in our new spreadsheet. In this report, we present some of the top line results. A spreadsheet with the data is available here. Continue reading
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Local jails are an important part of the state’s criminal justice system. Jails house, among others, individuals held pretrial, serving sentences, and held for federal and other authorities. In this report and in the accompanying spreadsheet (here), we provide information about North Carolina jail occupancy rates. Among other things, we find that:
- 40.6% of counties[1] exceeded in-county jail capacity for at least one month in 2019; and
- 56.3% of counties exceeded 90% of in-county jail capacity for at least one month in 2019.
Our report relies on information reported to state authorities. Specifically, the North Carolina Administrative Code requires the sheriff or the administrator of a regional jail to submit a monthly report to the Jail and Detention Section of DHHS’ Division of Health Service Regulation.[2] Police chiefs likewise are required to report monthly on the occupancy of municipal lockups.[3] According to DHHS, those required to report do not include a count of inmates housed in other counties; rather they count only individuals physically present in the facility.[4] A jail that is housing individuals for another county would include those persons in its count.[5] We obtained a compilation of reported data from DHSS and it serves as the basis for this report. Continue reading →
After former Chief Justice Mark Martin’s North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice issued its final report recommending that North Carolina embark on bail reform pilot projects, North Carolina Judicial District 30B launched the first such project. Judicial District 30B consists of two rural counties in Western North Carolina: Haywood and Jackson. Among other things, the district is not served by a public defender, has no pretrial services, and in one of the counties caseloads are such that District Court is not held daily. The collaborative pilot project was led by Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Bradley Letts and involved a broad range of stakeholders including the District Attorney, local defense lawyers, District Court judges, magistrates, clerks of court, police chiefs, representatives from the Sheriffs’ departments, and more. Continue reading →
We have produced a variety of reports providing criminal justice stakeholders with key metrics to help them understand and evaluate their local criminal justice systems. Among other things, we have produced statewide and county level data on use of citations by law enforcement officers, use of summonses and warrants by magistrates, imposition of different types of conditions of pretrial release, and local jail occupancy numbers. In this report, we provide statewide and county level information on number of criminal charges, charged defendants, and criminal cases. As with our other reports, we make no judgment about the data presented; our goal simply is to provide data to inform stakeholders. Our full spreadsheet of results (here) has three main tabs showing data for (1) all offenses; (2) felonies; and (3) misdemeanors. Two additional tabs break down misdemeanor offenses into non-traffic misdemeanors and traffic misdemeanors. Each tab presents the following information at the state and county level:
- Total charged offenses
- Charged offenses per 100,000 population
- Total charged defendants
- Total charged cases
- Changes in these data points, from 2018 to 2019
In late 2019, bail litigation came to North Carolina. I have written before about successful federal bail litigation in other jurisdictions, including a decision holding that the bail system in Harris County, Texas was unconstitutional. Similar litigation is now underway in our state, and appears to be headed towards a consent preliminary injunction. Continue reading →
We previously produced information about the prevalence of secured bonds at the state and county level. In this report we update that work with 2019 data and look at changes in the imposition of financial and non-financial conditions in North Carolina. A few key takeaways from our research: Continue reading →
Local jails are an important part of the state’s criminal justice system. Jails house, among others, individuals held pretrial, serving sentences, and held for federal and other authorities. In this report and in the accompanying spreadsheet (here), we provide information about North Carolina jail occupancy rates. Among other things, we find that:
- 50% of counties exceeded in-county jail capacity for at least one month in 2018; and
- 64% of counties exceeded 90% of in-county jail capacity for at least one month in 2018.
I previously wrote (here) about the role of money bail in North Carolina and presented 2018 county-level data on the types of pretrial conditions imposed for misdemeanors. I got so many questions about that data that we have produced it in a more comprehensive and user friendly form. Our new downloadable Excel file (here) contains two tabs, one for highest charge misdemeanor cases and one for highest charge felony cases. As with our previous report, this one presents county-level data from the NC AOC system for last condition imposed. In the default view, state level data is presented at the top of the spreadsheet with county-level data below, and with counties arrayed in alphabetical order. But because it is a downloadable file, users can manipulate the spreadsheet to show, for example, counties arrayed by highest percentage of secured bonds in misdemeanor cases (Figure 1 below) or lowest percentage of secured bonds in those cases (Figure 2 below). The statewide average for secured bonds in misdemeanor cases is 67.6%, but the range is significant, from a low of imposition in 32.9% of cases (Gates) to imposition in 87.6% of cases (Franklin). It also is noteworthy that in 2019 only five counties (Gates, Mecklenburg, Tyrrell, Camden and Hyde) imposed secured bonds in less than ½ of highest charge misdemeanor cases.
The new spreadsheet also includes data on felony cases. Statewide in 2018, secured bonds were imposed in 79.5% of those cases. But again the range is significant, from imposition in 49.3% of cases (Gates) to imposition in 95.4% of cases (Watauga). In a separate report I will present 2019 data to date; stay tuned, there are some interesting developments.
For more information about bail in North Carolina, please visit our web page here.
Figure 1. Conditions of release, highest charge misdemeanor, highest percentages of secured bonds
Figure 2. Conditions of release, highest charge misdemeanor, lowest percentages of secured bonds
In 2018, a national survey asked Americans what they thought of our pretrial justice systems. Their responses? Strong support for expanded pretrial release. The survey was done by a bipartisan team of pollsters on behalf of Pew Charitable Trusts. See The Pew Charitable Trusts, Americans Favor Expanded Pretrial Release, Limited Use of Jail (2018). Here are my top six take-aways from the survey, along with related survey data, explanatory text and graphs, which come directly from the Pew report (all attribution to Pew). Continue reading →
Under state law, pretrial conditions must be set after a defendant is arrested for a crime, and this typically occurs at the initial appearance before a magistrate. G.S. 15A-511. Although state statutes express a preference for non-financial conditions (written promise to appear, custody release, and unsecured bond), G.S. 15A-534(b), secured bonds are the most commonly imposed pretrial condition in North Carolina. See Jessica Smith, How Big a Role Does Money Play in North Carolina’s Bail System (July 2019). Much has been written about the problems of using money to detain pretrial, including the unfairness of incarcerating people not because they are risky but because they are poor. Thus, in discussions about procedural reform, there is interest in making sure that law enforcement and court officials only execute or order arrests in cases where arrest is in fact required. If, in low-level cases for example, the officer opts for a citation instead of a warrantless arrest or the magistrate opts for a summons instead of an arrest warrant, the defendant simply is directed to appear in court to answer the charges. Since the defendant is not taken into custody, there is no initial appearance or setting of conditions, which again, skew towards secured bonds and create the potential for wealth-based detentions and other negative consequences. This explains why stakeholders are looking at citation and summons in lieu of arrest policies, either as stand-alone reforms or as part of broader bail reform efforts. As stakeholders explore these matters, they are asking questions about the prevalence of citation and summons use in their communities. In a paper here, we present data regarding citation usage in North Carolina. In this paper, we focus on usage of the criminal summons. Continue reading →
