Monday, August 6, 2012

In and out...

The Greenville Police Department arrests enough people each year to fill up the Pitt County Detention Center 10 times.   More than 5,000 people. 

What happens to all these people after thay are convicted and sentenced?   Many of them convicted of non-violent crimes are  given credit for their time already served in jail waiting for trial.  They are then released.  They may be ordered to pay a fine, or they may be ordered to serve probation,  either supervised or unsupervised.    Some of these people served short sentences in the local jail, and are then released to serve time on probation.  

Those persons covicted of violent crimes, or some repeat offenders, may be sentenced to serve more time in prison.  They are then often transported to a State-run prison facility somewhere in the State of NC,  depending upon where a facility may have open space and depending on what type of crime and level of security is needed for that particular person.

As fast as people are being put into jail,   it is important for the public to remember there are just as many people being released from jail,  and they are coming out and coming back to our community, just about as fast as the others are going in.

The average person can find out who is being released from prison by searching the North Carolina Department of Corrections Website. 

This is the web link:    http://www.doc.state.nc.us/

On that website is a another link to search "Inmate Releases."  Any person can search this link and find out who has been released back into their community.   Using this website, we found that 47 offenders were released back to Pitt County in July 2012.  Almost everyone who was released had completed their required prison sentence.  Beside the name of each person being released is listed the crimes for which they were jailed.

A quick search tells us that on average about 50 people are released to Pitt County each month.  Pitt  County is only 1 of 100 counties in North Carolina.

What is truly unfortunate about the release information is the fact that many of these people are repeat offenders and will return to prison again.  But that is a topic for another day.

As a side note,  there is also a link on the NC DOC website about the death penalty in NC, with listings and details about nearly every person on death row, and the death penalty in NC.  

A person can learn a lot of stuff on the internet.







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