As deaths in NC jails continue to rise, lawmakers debate new safety rules

North Carolina State Rep. Sarah Stevens introduced an amendment Wednesday that would block new rules from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services aimed at making jails safer.

The amendment, which was adopted into a Senate bill containing a package of regulatory changes, strikes two of the 33 proposed DHHS rules. One is intended to prevent jails from holding more inmates than their designated capacity, and another would require jails to have both indoor and outdoor recreation spaces for inmates.

“We think that both of these rules are a little too stringent at this point for Health and Human Services to impose on the county jails,” said Stevens, a Republican from Mount Airy.

This is not legislators’ first attempt to oppose the DHHS rules. In May, two Republican lawmakers in the House, one a former Pender County Sheriff and the other a former chief deputy for Randolph County, filed a bill that would block all 33 of the proposed rules.

The amendment comes on the heels of a rising number of suicides and deaths in North Carolina jails over recent years, and is part of a package of rules that DHHS officials and activists have said would make conditions safer and more humane for inmates.

Kris Parks, a contract lobbyist with Disability Rights North Carolina, expressed frustration Wednesday night about the new amendment.

“Instead of having a debate on these hugely important issues that people have devoted their careers to for the past four years, it’s stuck in a bill where no one even knows anything about it,” Parks told The News & Observer in an interview.

Inmate suicides

A June report by Disability Rights North Carolina found that 20 inmates had died by suicide in 2019, a 67% increase from the previous year, and a high since the organization began collecting data in 2013.

For long-term jail inmates, a lack of outdoor space in county jails can be a harsh punishment. In 2018, the Marshall Project reported on a growing population of inmates convicted of misdemeanor crimes housed in North Carolina jails, who in some cases, served the entirety of their multi-year sentences in such facilities.

For inmates at some jails, time spent outside could be limited to a few minutes a day, if at all.

“I think it’s a really terrible thing to say we want to deny human beings the right to have some fresh air for years,” Parks said.

And county jails are financially compensated for their participation in the confinement program; they’re paid $40 per day for each misdemeanor inmate who would otherwise be housed in a state prison. The state also provides the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association with $1 million annually to oversee and administer the program.

While the Sheriff’s Association previously objected to the two proposed DHHS rules targeted by Stevens’ amendment, Eddie Caldwell, the association’s executive vice president, said the group is changing course. Caldwell said Wednesday at a House Committee on Rules, Calendar, and Operations that the association is “no longer pursuing the disapproval of those two rules.”

Earlier this month, Caldwell told the N&O these provisions would pose infeasible restrictions on jail operations, calling it “operationally impossible” for them to be mandated to move inmates to other facilities if over their designated capacity.

But after negotiations with the DHHS resulted in the department promising to revise the two rules, the association agreed to drop its objections.

To Parks, this fact added fuel to her frustration at lawmakers’ last-minute effort to block the DHHS rules.

“Why do the bill sponsors continue to push this amendment?” she said.

Rep. Robert Reives, a Durham Democrat, proposed an amendment at the rules committee meeting that would remove provisions added by Stevens’ amendment, but agreed to withdraw it until the bill reaches the House floor on Thursday.

This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 6:00 AM.