The Wilson Center is deeply committed to improving the criminal legal system in our home state of North Carolina. We believe that meaningful change starts locally.
Across the Center, we partner with state agencies, local government, and community organizations to drive evidence-based solutions. A few of our projects focused on North Carolina are spotlighted below.
North Carolina Technical Assistance Center
The Wilson Center is a member of the North Carolina Technical Assistance Center (NC-TAC), a collaborative multi-agency partnership that provides coaching, training, and resources to organizations that support individuals at risk of incarceration and overdose. NC-TAC provides tailored, evidence-based, technical assistance with a harm reduction approach. NC-TAC is funded by NC DHHS Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Use Services. Learn more about NC-TAC on their website.
Partnering with Local and State Governments
We partner with local, county, and state governments to assess the effectiveness of programs designed to improve public safety.
Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) in North Carolina
LEAD is a community-based, pre-arrest diversion program that connects people who use drugs and are at risk of arrest for low-level unlawful conduct with support services such as social and medical services, behavioral health treatment, and harm reduction resources. In coalition with the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, the Wilson Center conducted an evaluation of four LEAD sites in North Carolina to determine the program’s effectiveness in reducing criminal justice involvement and increasing service utilization among program enrollees as well as investigating issues of equity in the program's application. Learn more in the LEAD Evaluation Summary of Findings, the Full Report, and the Policy Brief.
Evaluating New Technologies
The Wilson Center conducts evaluations of the implementation of new technologies used by local governments and police agencies and their impact on public safety. In 2023 and 2024, the Center conducted an evaluation of ShotSpotter, a gunfire detection system, which was installed for a twelve-month pilot program in Durham. The evaluation delved into ShotSpotter’s effects on notifications and police deployment, productivity of investigations, and the costs to the city’s budget and police resources. Learn more here. We are currently evaluating Fayetteville's use of the technology as well.
Collaborating with the North Carolina Leadership Forum
In 2024, the Wilson Center collaborated with the North Carolina Leadership Forum (NCLF) to bring together leaders and impacted people from government, business, advocacy, and the community from across North Carolina to discuss an important question: What should we do to make North Carolina communities safe? We issued a report detailing discussions from the Community Safety Forum, including how community leaders worked across the political aisle to understand different points of view, productively disagree, and have healthy discussions to advance solutions to improve the lives of North Carolinians. We continue to build upon these discussions, bringing together Community Safety Forum participants to talk in-depth about critical issues affecting North Carolinians. In March 2025, we hosted a webinar to discuss driver’s license suspensions resulting from unpaid traffic fines and fees and failing to appear in court.
Rethinking Fines and Fees in NC
The scale of criminal debt in the United States has exploded, with local, state and federal court imposing billions of dollars in fines and fees on people in criminal cases. In North Carolina, over 650,000 people, or 1 in 12 adults, currently have unpaid criminal court debt. If a person lacks the ability to pay or does not pay the charges, even more financial penalties and legal consequences can result. The Wilson Center studies the problem of spiraling criminal debt and develops recommendations for law and policy reforms in North Carolina.
Learn more:
- When the Dollars Don’t Add Up to Sense: Why North Carolina Must Rethink its Approach to Criminal Fines and Fees (2023)
- Driving Injustice: Consequences and Disparities in North Carolina Criminal Legal and Traffic Debt (2021)
- Driver’s License Suspensions in North Carolina (2020)
- The Explosion of Unpaid Criminal Fines and Fees in North Carolina (2020)