Community Safety, Driver’s License Suspension, and Fairness: Lessons from NCLF

Over four meetings last spring, North Carolina leaders and impacted people from government, business, advocacy, and the community came together to discuss an important question: What should we do to make North Carolina communities safe? In this conversation, three participants from the Forum shared what they learned from working 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 also talked more in-depth with them about a critical issue in North Carolina – driver’s license suspensions resulting from unpaid traffic fines and fees and failing to appear in court.  Currently, nearly one million North Carolinians are impacted by this issue. We delved into the key question: how can we solve this issue while taking safety, accountability, and fairness into account?

Here are some highlights from the conversation:

On how NCLF helped them think about issues in new ways 

Frankie Roberts: There were perspectives that I had, simply because how I was raised and the work I do every day, and sometimes I might not have given room of what it looks like on the other side of the table. And so getting in this room and have an open dialogue where people was kind of prepped not to take things personally. It gave you a way to look at things more objectively, and to really listen to another perspective. And at times those perspectives, you scratch your head and say, dang! I never thought of it that way.

Sen. Warren Daniel: Sure I'll just say so in terms of the specific presentation was...the HEART program. They approached law enforcement with a multidisciplinary approach where mayve they'd go on a call, and they would have emts, and maybe a social worker or a mental health professional. I had preconceived notions about that going in that this is not a concept that can work. It's too expensive. It's sort of maybe coddling bad people, but it seemed like from their presentation that it had some of the opposite effects... It helped police to deal with what they should deal with and let the other services deal with calls that a police officer might not need to...And so that was probably my favorite thing from the the presentations.

DA Matthew Scott: I would say across all the discussions we had on the issues we had, I was better informed from other people's life experiences, work, experiences, things that I don't think I would have necessarily been able to get that perspective if I hadn't been a part of the the forum...In Robeson County, since I've been DA, we've started a a drug treatment program, a sobriety program, a law enforcement assisted diversion program. But all of those have highlighted the fact that a lot of the issues we individuals we see in those programs are suffering from an underlying mental health issue that's driving the substance use issue. And so if you look at HEART program, how how they tackle that in Durham has gotten me to think about how we can somewhat incorporate that in in, say, Robeson County.

On how suspended licenses affect North Carolinians and what we can do about it

DA Matthew Scott: I first became aware of this when I first got elected in 2019. A State legislator, a local legislator, came to me to highlight this issue. In looking at the data it, it appeared that at least 2 thirds of the people driving the roads of Robeson County were driving on a revoked or suspended license...So we had to look into why and and there is a difference between. Let me make sure we're clear. There's a difference in FTA and an FTC. There's a difference in failure to appear and failure to comply. Failure to appear just means they, the individuals just didn't show up for court. The charge is still out there. Failure to comply is okay these these individuals handled the underlying matter whether it be a speeding ticket. Improper equipment, you know, whatever they, these individuals, came to court, or was represented in court, and handled the underlying charge so you could argue, I think, pretty conventionally that they took responsibility for the the underlying issue. They just hadn't didn't have not paid the fines and fees associated with it. So if we look at that, how many is that in Robeson County is thousands...We're we're talking thousands. So then you go and talk to our local business business owners, small business owners, business owners. Well, what's the problem? Well, we got a lot of jobs. Okay, well, we got a lot of people that can conceivably fill those jobs. Well, what's the issue? Well, in order for you to be employed by my companies or businesses, you have to have a driver's license.

Sen. Warren Daniel: So I think I think as a legislator, when you break the law, there has to be some ramifications. And then the question is, Well, what's what's the proper penalty?...You have to show up in court. You should show up and just explain your circumstances, and I think the DA would probably agree with me that you know you can't help somebody who won't show up..and the seriousness escalates...But you know, what can we do now for people who, you know? If and it would be great if we could have this data about who has  has not had a license for 10 years or 5 years, or 3 years. They may be productive citizens. They just are either driving illegally, like Frankie said or they're, you know, riding a bike or a moped or something. Because you know, there's probably  be some sort of amnesty that could be offered to people after a period of years...I think there's a lot of things that that we could look at. There was actually a bill that Senator Britt, who was, is Matthew Scott's senator, filed in in 2021. It was called License to work, and it had some solutions. That you could have sliding scale fines for people who had less financial means. Maybe you let them pay payments over a period of a year, and no less than $10 a month or something. But there's groups like the DA's Conference that ywould have to be convinced that this is the right solution. We have to touch the bases in the court system. What are the District court judges thinking? What do the DA think? What do law enforcement folks think? And once we can get everybody on the same page, then there could be maybe a common sense solution to this.

Frankie Roberts: You mentioned something key when you said that we got a lot of stakeholders here. We were talking about the judges, the DAs, the law enforcement. But we didn't mention again people who are impacted. So if the DA's Association is having a meeting without impacted people being invited in like the North Carolina Leadership Forum has showed us that can happen, you really limit yourself from a perspective that you are trying to solve a problem when when you don't have the people at the table who are the victims. I would like to do a shameless plug to say there are a few subject matter experts in the State of North Carolina on this issue. Like Forward Justice, the Justice Center Community success initiatives. So I think anytime this conversation is being had at any of the association levels. These groups ought to be in the room because they represent and advocate for people who are the victims of our discussion. And I say the victims lightly. But typically when we're trying to solve that problem, I think those groups need to be in the room.