The New Hanover County Jail is overcrowded, what’s new? Inmates chained to the walls, what’s new?
If we are going to have a chance at combating crime we have to have a place to put the criminals but we must to do it safely and with a bit of humanity.
Take note of cuts from previous news articles regarding the jail.
Wilmington Star News articles of interest. August 2, 2000
New Hanover Court Backlog Causes Serious Problems
“Inmates plead guilty even if they’re innocent”Inmates, excluding murder defendants, ‘had spent an average 80 days in jail..
”Murder defendants spend “average of 332 days”
“’Sometimes, someone that hasn’t done anything is going to get put in jail,’ said Capt. Steve Smith, chief jailer. ‘ that’s just humanity. It’s sad for something like that to go on…there’s a hairball in the pipeline between here and the courthouse.’
”A felony charge (for those unable to afford bond) requires an inmate to “… sit at least three months before they are scheduled to trial.”“After cases pass through three month long preliminary stages, trial dates are scheduled for at least two months after that.”“… it is extremely difficult to get a case to trial in under six to eight months…”
“District Attorney John Carriker said he believes the long stays in jail involve many issues, including the difficulty defense lawyers have in talking to clients who are being held in distant jails, a result of over crowding.
”The new Jail is to be occupied “… by Nov. 2001
”August 4, 1999
Editorial Four years ago (1995) , a grand jury pointed out the obvious:
The New Hanover County Jail was crowded”
The threat of the June 1999 lawsuit by the NC Prisoners Legal Services calls for action.
September, 11, 1998
Dead Inmate’s Family Settles for $500,000
A two week long trial regarding the death of Gerald Blackledge, 41 (Sheriff Joe McQueen’s nephew)
The inmate was in jail because of a probation violation.
July 23, 1979
Riot in the New Hanover County Jail“The jail has come under criticism
recently because of overcrowding conditions. Most of the prisoners in
the jail are held there awaiting trial.”
So What’s
New?
The Jail conditions have historically been horrendous. Spilling over with
scores of people awaiting trial. Most of these people are too poor to
“bond out” and some of them are too dangerous to be let out.
But we have to keep them somewhere until they can have their day in court.
Those that end up convicted or plea to a lesser charge may be given a
prison term, some will be released with time already served (meaning that
for those inmates, they spent their prison time in a county jail situation
rather than a tougher state prison facility). Others are released on probation
with a suspended prison sentence, which means, that if they fail the conditions
of their probation, they will end up serving time in prison.
Our jail was initially designed to hold 125 inmates. An addition in 1990 gave the jail 83 new beds, bringing the total to 209. Today the daily population is over 400. I have seen, in the past, juvenile inmates sleeping on the floor chained to the wall in hallways because there was no place for them to stay safely. Young inmates often fall victim to physical as well as sexual assaults by other, more seasoned, criminal inmates.
New Hanover County is one of the wealthiest areas of the State and certainly
has the money, education, and community participation to have a model
jail system, yet we don’t even come close.We all knew back in the
90’s that, not only was the overcrowding dangerous to the inmates,
but to the deputies working there as well. Sadly, the then acting Sheriff
Joe McQueen, and the County Commissioners, failed to act on the overcrowding
problem. When it became obvious that overcrowding could be a deadly situation
for both the inmates as well as the jailers, no one acted.
That is until 1998 when an organization representing prisoners’ rights made a serious threat. Michael Hamden, a lawyer with the not-for-profit advocates right’s agency, NC Prisoners’ Legal Services, threatened suit if the County would not keep the inmate population below 262 inmates. (read more about it here)
The Sheriff’s department has since been shuttling inmates back and forth all over the state at a cost of over $125,000 a month trying to keep the NCPLS lawsuit at bay.
The new jail is now way behind schedule. One time scheduled to open in the fall of 2001, it now looks like it won’t be in operation until October of 2004. Cost overruns are being adjusted with creative accounting procedures to show only a slight increase, to our taxpayers, in the projected $48 million budget. The delays, the bickering, the poor planning, and the lack of vision, by Sheriff McQueen and the County, to initiate this new jail sooner, caused problems that couldn’t be overcome easily and without great expense.
We should now be looking at situations already facing the new, yet to be finished, jail. We are projecting overcrowding issues even before we cut the ribbon on the new jail. We have sold off spaces to the Federal Government for their inmates to be held for trial, we have the returning inmates who have been kept in the western part of the State, there are inmates that require special needs, inmates that have to be segregated, and most noteworthy of all, we have a growing crime problem which stuffs more and more inmates into our jail.
That’s right, it is because our crime problem is so bad that we have so many people in jail awaiting trial. It stands to reason that the less crime we have committed here, the less numbers of people we would have to incarcerate. Some would have you believe that it is the 2% annual increase in population that causes our jail to overcrowd. But it is not the population, it is a crime rate that is more than 50% over the State’s norm that fills our courts and our jails, not only costing us our valuable tax money but it effects the safety and security of our families and our neighborhoods.
Right now we are sending people home immediately after being arrested
on communicating threat charges, obtaining property by false pretenses
and assault charges without paying any bond. People with a history of
some serious crimes are being released either by pleading down to lesser
crimes or by accepting a suspended sentence in conjunction with probation.
This jeopardizes the safety of our community, people do commit crimes
while awaiting trial on another crime.
Just ask the Birmingham Police Department how dangerous a person can be while they await trial. Three Birmingham police officers were killed, by a man who failed to appear in court for a misdemeanor charge.
If we are to make a difference in our crime rate then we must charge people
with offenses. When we charge them with a crime we must hold them accountable
and if necessary place them in jail, under bond. The courts should be
equipped to move the court docket along responsibly and without relying
on plea bargaining to end the case.
We need to start building new jail space now. There will be more arrests
and more criminals awaiting trial as soon as there is more space to place
them. You wait, as soon as 50 new spaces open up there will be 50 more
people sent to jail to take up the space.
In 2001 1456 were arrested for DWI in New Hanover County, 2415 for assault,
577 for burglary, 908 drug violations, 894 drug possession, 1569 larcenies,
398 for marijuana possessions, 56 motor vehicle thefts, 459 cocaine possession,
5 cocaine sale/manufacture, 2205 property crimes, 46 crimes against family,
750 violent crimes, 77 prostitution, 24 rapes, 200 robberies, 75 sex offenses,
199 weapon violations. This is the type of traffic the jail faces through
the steel bars every year. see
who is in jail We
should be seeing a lot more as we get our act together to fight crime.
But this should not deter us from being proactive. We must build this
infrastructure to support the law enforcement efforts to wrangle in the
folks committing crime. As those criminals get put away less crime will
be committed. In the long run we should need less and less space. If we
find ourselves with vacancies then let's rent out the space to our neighbors.
Our jail legally holds 209 inmates. We are currently well over 400 inmates
crammed into space built to hold 209. Another 70 or so inmates are shipped
out of the area at a cost at over $100,000 a month while they await trial.
This did not happen over night. This is the result of poor management
and extremely poor judgment.
We are all holding our breath until the new jail opens in…..
SPEAK OUT IN THE FORUM
