Staffing issues continue to plague the Mecklenburg jail. Is a shutdown possible?
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a final report and letter from Chris Wood, the chief jail inspector for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, sent to Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden and others.
Mecklenburg County’s two-prong effort to reduce the uptown jail’s inmate population and fill more than 150 vacant detention jobs appears to be failing.
That sets the stage for a possible regulatory showdown in which the state — or a Mecklenburg County judge — could close North Carolina’s largest county detention facility due to the unaddressed safety concerns.
The likelihood of a shutdown, which is spelled out under state law, remains unclear. The Observer has not found a North Carolina case in which such a drastic step has been taken.
But more than a month after the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office was advised to reduce inmate numbers by almost 30 percent, the jail’s occupancy has remained largely the same, as has its job vacancies.
On Dec. 21, the chief jail inspector for the state Department of Health and Human Services found what he described as a dangerous staffing shortage that posed an “imminent threat to the safety of the inmates and staff.”
The jail population at the time stood at 1,407; the number of vacancies among detention center staff, 159, according to the Sheriff’s Office. The detention center has 470 jobs overall.
In a memo two days later that became public Jan. 4, inspector Chris Wood recommended that Sheriff Garry McFadden “immediately begin” cutting the inmate count to under 1,000 until jail staffing returned to normal.
Despite a monthlong effort by the county’s criminal-justice system to relocate some inmates while also reviewing hundreds of cases in hopes of safely releasing more defendants before their trials, the inmate count remains far above the state threshold.
“We’re nowhere close,” Chief District Judge Elizabeth Trosch told the Observer during a phone interview Wednesday. “It doesn’t appear that any of our efforts are moving the needle nearly enough to meet the target set by (the state).”
County board’s possible role
As of Feb. 1, the jail population stood at 1,406, almost the exact number Wood found six weeks ago. By Wednesday, the total had fallen to 1,350 — still far above the state’s recommendation.
That number would have been higher except for 10 pretrial detainees who were moved Saturday to the New Hanover County Jail in Wilmington, a transfer that was confirmed by the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office on Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile, job vacancies inside the jail — 157 as of Monday — all but match the December level.
Wood’s final report — which was sent to McFadden and other county and jail officials on Feb. 9 — seemingly escalates the situation.
The inspection “found deficiencies” that require corrections, Wood said in a letter that accompanied the report. Wood gave McFadden 30 days to inform the state on how his office would correct the violations, and 60 days to fix them entirely.
According to state law, when NCDHHS determines that jail conditions “jeopardize the safe custody, safety, health, or welfare of persons confined in the facility” or violate several other standards, department Secretary Kody Kinsley can order corrections or close the facility altogether.
If it’s the former, county commissioners have 30 days to initiate improvements or shut the jail themselves.
Commissioners can also challenge the state’s order. If they lose, they can appeal.
That would send the matter to Carla Archie, who, as the county’s senior resident Superior Court judge, has been actively involved in efforts to lower the jail population.
After holding a public hearing, Archie “may affirm, modify, or reverse the Secretary’s order,” the law says.
The Observer requested an interview with Archie on Wednesday. The judge declined, saying she could not comment on a situation that might come before her in court.
Board of commissioners Chairman George Dunlap did not respond to Observer emails and phone calls seeking comment. Emails this week to County Manager Dena Diorio and County Attorney Tyrone Ward about the jail problems and the commissioners’ role in addressing them also went unanswered.
Last week, a county spokesperson confirmed that Diorio “offered to work with the Sheriff to develop a sign-on bonus program” to improve hiring. To improve retention, commissioners also approved additional bonuses for some existing employees. It’s not clear if the Sheriff’s Office has put the bonus plans in place.
Depopulating the jail
Even a temporary jail closure would have massive consequences for the state and federal courts. As of Wednesday, the jail held 901 people accused of felonies and awaiting trial. A quarter of them were federal prisoners, part of a custody arrangement with the Western District of North Carolina federal courts that pays the county some $30 million a year.
As part of the depopulation effort, the U.S. Marshals Service has relocated several dozen federal pretrial detainees. Trosch says another 30 federal inmates are to be moved this week.
McFadden has also worked with the state to more quickly move state inmates already sentenced to prison terms to their new detention facilities.
Those moves temporarily have lowered the jail population but never for long. Finding homes for almost 1,000 inmates if the jail is closed could prove to be an insurmountable task. It would also add another layer of delays and additional cost to the courts, Trosch said.
McFadden is scheduled to hold a press conference Friday afternoon “to detail depopulation efforts.”
Throughout the jail crisis, the Observer has repeatedly requested an interview with McFadden, but the first-term sheriff has not been made available.
He told Queen City News late last month that conditions in the jail caused by the lack of staff have been severe.
“We are in a crisis. We are in a very difficult situation at this time,” he said.
Staffing crisis, mandatory OT
The staffing shortage in McFadden’s jail has been driven by the pandemic. In December alone, a near record 4.3 million Americans left or changed jobs.
Given the everyday demands on their officers along with the in-house threat of disease, jails and prisons have been hit particularly hard by the job losses. The Mecklenburg jail, for example, has been struck by repeated COVID-19 outbreaks. One jailer has died; dozens of detention officers have been sickened at various times along with hundreds of inmates.
To offset the vacancies, jailers until recently, were forced to work mandatory overtime; late last month, 12 officers worked 24-hour shifts. The Sheriff’s Office also blamed the staff shortage for a recent increase of violence between inmates and jail staff.
Based on the lingering number of vacancies, recruitment efforts have been marginally successful at best. Mecklenburg County’s high cost of living already makes it difficult for government agencies to compete for hires. The pandemic has only added to that.
“When jobs become riskier, it becomes harder to attract workers,” University of Michigan economist Betsey Stevenson told the Associated Press in November.
“By failing to protect prisoners from COVID, the criminal justice system not only created an unfair risk of severe illness and death for the incarcerated, but the increased COVID risk to employees has undoubtedly contributed to staffing shortages.”
‘You just can’t release everybody’
In a recent interview with the Observer, Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather described the jail problems as a “staffing crisis” and not a problem of too many inmates — particularly for the state’s largest local criminal justice system. The county’s top prosecutor also said courthouse officials have taken the steps necessary to ensure “that the folks who are still in the jail are the ones who need to be there.”
To further lower inmate numbers, Merriweather calls for a greater reopening of the Mecklenburg courthouse, where because of staff shortages and health protocols, only one courtroom has been holding criminal cases instead of the normal three. The smaller criminal-justice pipeline has significantly lengthened the jail stay for defendants awaiting trial.
Trosch, the judge who has led the effort to control the jail population since the March 2020 arrival of the pandemic, told the Observer in January that any further cuts to the jail population won’t be fast or jeopardize public safety.
Last month, the committee of judges, prosecutors and public defenders analyzed some 250 felony cases in hopes of finding some defendants who could be safely released. The results were minimal, she said.
“Some of those cases make you gulp. You just can’t release everybody,” Trosch said. “One of our takeaways from this has been, ‘Gosh, there’s not a lot we can prune here. We’ve pretty effectively prevented people who don’t belong in jail from being in it.”
Meanwhile, the almost tidal flow of humanity in and out of the jail continues.
On Tuesday, 30 inmates were released; 34 were booked and admitted.
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 6:30 AM.
