We previously shared data on jail occupancy in North Carolina for 2018 (here) and 2019 (here). Responding to requests for information regarding changes in jail populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, with this report we offer information about 2020 jail populations. For an explanation regarding our data source and explanatory notes, please see our prior reports. Before we get to the numbers, we make two important points. First, beginning on April 6, 2020, a moratorium was placed on most inmate transfers from county jails to the state prison system.[1] As our colleague Jamie Markham explained, state officials imposed that moratorium to help manage the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, inmates ordered to serve active time were—unless sentenced to time served, released on appeal bond, or otherwise permitted to delay the start of their sentence—rolled into a “jail backlog.”[2] By the end of May 2020, there were over 1600 backlog inmates in county jails.[3] To the extent efforts were made to reduce populations in county jails, the moratorium would have impacted those initiatives. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a suspension of jury trials. Charging new offenses, however, has continued. Thus, jails may be experiencing a backlog of defendants detained pretrial.
Jessica Smith
Invitation to NC Police Departments: Apply Now for The Citation Project
On July 15th, the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police (NCACP) invited its members to apply to serve as pilot sites for a new project supporting evidence-based policing practices. Executed by the UNC School of Government’s Criminal Justice Innovation Lab (CJIL) and the NCACP, The Citation Project seeks to improve policing practices through implementation and rigorous evaluation of a model citation in lieu of arrest policy. The project has three components: (1) developing a model citation in lieu of arrest policy; (2) selecting North Carolina police departments to serve as pilot sites and supporting their implementation of the model policy; and (3) conducting an empirical evaluation to assess impact on core criminal justice metrics.
Detailed North Carolina Statewide & County-Level Criminal Charging Data
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.
2019 North Carolina Jail Occupancy Rates
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.
Results from Empirical Evaluation of NC Judicial District 30B Bail Project
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.
North Carolina County-Level Criminal Charging Data
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
Federal Lawsuit Challenges Alamance County NC’s Bail System
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.
2019 North Carolina Conditions of Release Report
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:
2018 North Carolina Jail Occupancy Rates
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.
County-Level Bail Conditions in North Carolina
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 … Read more