prison system
Report: Some incarcerated people don’t trust NC’s prison grievance system
Fear of punishment, concerns that prison staff thwart attempts to submit grievances cited A new report on North Carolina’s prison grievance procedure found that some incarcerated people do not think the policy resolves their complaints and fear they will be punished for raising an objection about their confinement.
Monday numbers: Nearly 19,000 children in NC have a parent who’s imprisoned
Data obtained through a records request illustrates how many parents are in North Carolina prisons — and how many kids have parents behind bars Almost 10,000 people in North Carolina prisons are the parent of a child younger than 18 years old. And at least 18,800 children across the state have a parent who is […]
A New Year’s resolution for North Carolina: Overhaul the state’s cruel and archaic criminal sentencing system
Gov. Roy Cooper delivered some welcome holiday presents recently to a handful of people who had served long sentences in state prison. Six were granted clemency and an early release, while four others who’d previously served long sentences received full pardons. All 10 appear to have turned their lives around and more than paid their debts to a state in which criminal penalties – particularly those that relate to drug possession and sales – are incredibly severe.
Transgender prisoner fighting for gender-affirming surgery
When Kanautica Zayre-Brown was transferred to Anson Correctional Institution in 2019, she became the first incarcerated transgender person in North Carolina to move from a prison designated for one gender to one designated for another. But that hasn’t solved all the problems of navigating a state prison system that seems ill-prepared for the realities of incarcerating transgender people.