NEWS

N.C. jail population jumps 401 percent in two decades

By DAVID WILLIAMSON
UNC-CH News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- The average number of prisoners in North Carolina jails rose 401 percent between June 1975 and June 1996, from 2,337 inmates to 11,704, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analysis. That increase was significantly faster than the 145 percent growth in the state's prison population and cost counties a lot of money, a researcher says.

“The immediate cause of the increase in the total jail population is the increase in pretrial detainees,” said Stevens H. Clarke, a criminologist with UNC-CH's Institute of Government. “Most unsentenced prisoners are held in jail awaiting trial, usually because they are unable to post bond.”

More arrests by police across the state have driven up the number of court cases filed, said Clarke, who analyzed data from the N.C. Department of Human Resources and the N.C. Sentencing Commission. He is scheduled to present the findings Thursday (May 29) at the institute's annual school for sheriffs, deputies and detention officers.

“Arrest increases affect the jail population in two ways -- directly by increasing admissions and indirectly by slowing down the court system and thus prolonging confinement of prisoners awaiting trial,” he said.

Between 1983 and 1990, arrests jumped across the state, the researcher said. Since 1990, arrest rates leveled off, while the jail population has continued to climb. Also, the average length of stay in jail before trial rose 146 percent between 1975 and 1996, from about four days per prisoner to about 10 days.

More jail capacity also contributes to continued jail population growth, he said. Beginning in 1987, new construction surged, raising the total capacity of N.C. jails from about 6,200 in 1987 to about 12,000 now.

To some extent, Clarke said, counties merely reacted to the growth in arrests and court caseloads, but when arrest growth leveled off after 1990, expansion of jail facilities continued.

“Availability of so much new jail space makes it easier to detain some arrested defendants,” he said. “This may be intentional. That is, to protect public safety, counties may deliberately opt to spend more money to lock up criminal suspects rather than let them receive pretrial release.”

Whether the jump in the county jail population is a problem depends on one's perspective, Clarke said.

“One of the functions of county government is public safety, and one way we try to keep people safe is by locking up other people believed to have broken the law,” he said. “Many people consider that money well spent. On the other hand, it is a growing expense and undoubtedly something decision-makers in county government have to wrestle with.”

Sentenced prisoners time in jail dropped from 22 days in the early 1980s to about 10 days in 1995 and then began to increase. As of last June it was about 12 days, possibly because of structured sentencing legislation that went into effect in October 1994.

“The recent increase in sentenced length of stay may be the result of two changes brought by the SSL,” the researcher said. “One is the requirement that misdemeanants sentenced to jail now must serve at least 87 percent of their terms. The other change is that the SSL, because of its sentencing grid that encourages use of intermediate rather than active punishment in some situations, may be increasing the number of sentences to special probation with a short confinement in jail rather than active terms in state prison.”

Clarke said his analysis did not include calculating and comparing costs of housing the state's burgeoning jail population.

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Note: Clarke can be reached at (919) 966-4399.

Contact: David Williamson