08/27/2026
A Professional Perspective on Jail Overcrowding
While I understand the frustration many people have regarding overcrowding in our county jails, I believe it is important to remember one thing: detention center employees do not control who is arrested, who remains incarcerated, or how many people are housed in a facility.
Across North Carolina, county detention centers continue to face staffing shortages, largely because of the combination of salaries, working conditions, responsibilities, and the increasing number of detainees being housed in these facilities. The men and women working inside these facilities are expected to maintain safety, security, order, and accountability regardless of how overcrowded a facility becomes.
I also understand the reasoning behind the Iyana Law and the desire to ensure that individuals accused of serious and violent offenses are not unnecessarily released back into the community. However, I believe legislation of this magnitude deserved extensive input from all sides, including law enforcement, detention professionals, prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, and other members of the judicial system. The people working on the front lines need to have a voice when laws directly affect the operation of our detention facilities.
We also have to be willing to ask some difficult questions.
Should someone who is homeless and accused of trespassing in an abandoned, boarded-up building remain incarcerated for two or three months at significant taxpayer expense? Should someone who is already homeless and placed on electronic monitoring be repeatedly violated because they cannot consistently keep the device charged when they have limited or no access to electricity?
And when we know someone is homeless before placing them on electronic monitoring, should we not also consider whether the conditions we are imposing are realistically achievable?
Then there are cases that continue to be postponed or continued, sometimes leaving people sitting in jail for extended periods while valuable bed space remains occupied.
A crime is a crime, and accountability matters. But we must also recognize that not every offense presents the same threat to public safety. We have to ask ourselves whether our limited jail space should be prioritized for individuals who pose the greatest danger to our communities, particularly those accused or convicted of violent offenses such as murder, r**e, and other serious crimes.
Most importantly, stop blaming the Sheriff’s Offices and detention center employees for a system they do not control. Detention officers do not write the laws. They do not set bonds. They do not decide who is prosecuted. They do not decide when cases are continued. They do not determine who remains incarcerated.
Their responsibility is to enforce the laws and orders that come from the system.
If we want to see meaningful change, we need to have honest conversations with the people who actually have the authority to change the system including our judges, prosecutors, district attorneys, legislators, and other elected officials.
Hold the right people accountable.
Our detention officers deserve safe working conditions. Our communities deserve public safety. Victims deserve justice. And taxpayers deserve a criminal justice system that uses limited resources responsibly.
This is not about being soft on crime. It is about being smart, fair, and realistic about how we use our detention facilities and the resources entrusted to us by the public.
I will stand by Sheriffs and Detention staff doing the best they can with what they have to work with.
