North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

Most people can get behind the idea that inmates should, if able, do some sort of work during their incarceration. By statute, “[i]t is declared to be the public policy […]

I have been getting many questions lately about the applicability and impact of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA. Specifically, people want to know the extent to which […]

I read an article this morning from the Washington Post about how some inmates are using the online consumer review site Yelp to rate jails and prisons. It’s an interesting […]

Sometimes, after being convicted and sentenced to jail or prison, a defendant asks for a little time to get his or her affairs in order before the sentence begins. Can […]

The Justice Reinvestment Act created a new early release program called Advanced Supervised Release (ASR). In short, the law allows certain prison inmates to get out of prison early if […]

A murderer recently escaped from a North Carolina prison. According to this News and Observer story, the escapee is James Ladd, who was convicted in 1981 of two counts of […]

Under existing law, the basic rules for where a sentence should be served are as follows: Misdemeanors, 90 days or less. If a sentence imposed for a misdemeanor is 90 […]

Last week the News and Observer ran an article about a legislative proposal to send more inmates to county jails instead of DOC facilities. A separate part of the plan […]

The Pew Center on the States just released a new report entitled One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections.  It’s available here, and a couple of news stories […]