By Ruthie Kesri The North Carolina General Assembly recently released its final budget, the first since 2018, and it allocated funds that will directly affect the health and safety of incarcerated people in North Carolina’s prison population. Against the wishes of some county officials and sheriffs, the bill did not include Medicaid expansion, which would […]
Category: Student Work
Bass Connections Team Explores Need for Better Jail Data in North Carolina
“We can’t have any evidence-based solutions because we don’t have the evidence. We’re not able to gather and collect evidence. That’s why it’s very important that we have the data so that we can know what’s happening,” — A North Carolina criminal justice advocate on the need for a jail database, Report on the Utility […]
Event Recap: Henry McCollum, Leon Brown Attorneys Talk Wrongful Convictions
By Annie Han In 1983, Red Springs, North Carolina, 19-year-old Henry McCollum and 15-year-old Leon Brown were wrongfully arrested for the rape and murder of a young Sabrina Buie. With the teens’ intellectual disabilities (McCollum’s IQ being 51 and Brown’s at 49) and the police’s fabricated evidence, McCollum and Brown were extremely vulnerable to coercion, […]
National Harm from Suspending Licenses in Response to Unpaid, Unaffordable Court Fines and Fees
By Annie Han Driving is critical for many people in North Carolina. North Carolinians need to drive to work, to take their children to school, and to complete other everyday tasks like grocery shopping and attending to their health. But, as important as is the right to drive, it can easily be taken away as […]
LEAD Program Allows Police Officers to Divert Individuals to Resources Instead of Arrest
By Neiman Araque Charlton Roberson, a Harm Reduction Specialist who works with the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program in Fayetteville, NC, and Cumberland County, said his colleagues working in emergency services or law enforcement often experience compassion fatigue. He explained how repeat offenders often imbue police officers with a sense of hopelessness and despair […]
After One Year, Racial Equity in Criminal Justice Task Force Still Working Toward Change
By Travis Thorpe Jr. Our Gov. Roy Cooper founded the Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice (TREC) with Executive Order 145 in June 2020. The mission of this task force is to promote equity in the criminal legal system for people of color. The main goal is to address the effects of systemic […]
Prison Gerrymandering Disenfranchises Incarcerated People in Political Process
By Annie Han Danny R. Young won a city council seat with just two write-in votes, one from his wife and the other from his neighbor. The city of Anamosa, Iowa was split into four wards, with each one containing about 1400 residents. But in Young’s ward, over 1300 of them were from the Anamosa […]
North Carolina Prisons See Drop in COVID Cases For Now, Delta Could Bring New Threat
By Ruthie Kesri More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, 10,000+ North Carolina prison-incarcerated people have tested positive for the virus. In the last three months though, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) has noted a striking drop in the number of cases in the prison system. “Once people were able to […]
Newby’s Adverse Childhood Experience Task Force to Meet for First Time This Month
By Carmyn Brown Recently, North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby announced a Task Force to address and study ACEs. ACEs are short for Adverse Childhood Experiences which suggests that childhood trauma and stress can lead to major illness, poor quality of life, and premature death, affecting children between the ages of 0 to […]
Recap: Experts Discuss Mental Illness and Competency Restoration
By Sean Bennett To try a defendant who is not mentally competent to take part in their defense is a denial of legal due process. While the state is not constitutionally compelled to prove a defendant is competent, they must allow them to attempt to prove they are incompetent to stand trial. Competency to stand […]