Topics Related to DPS Dispatch

Accountability, efficiency and professionalism are often some of the sought-after characteristics that can be found in job descriptions for North Carolina state employees. However, passionate, strong and caring are the unwritten attributes that also are needed to serve in roles that help to keep the Old North State a great place to live, work, play and prosper. 

Nurses Answer the Call
“4 million reasons to celebrate.”  This is the slogan for the 2019 American Nurses Association (ANA), National Nurses Week recognition. (Find out more here.) Many of those four million reasons work in correctional healthcare. Teams of dedicated medical professionals provide juvenile and adult offenders housed in NCDPS facilities with the same level of healthcare accessed by the general public. 

Everyone loves to eat. Now, as far as food preparation goes, that’s another story.

Central Prison Food Service Manager Conell Chapman loves food. He loves to eat, and he loves the process of preparation. Chapman also loves imparting that wisdom to offenders and prison staff, not just at Central Prison in Raleigh but to other prisons, county jails and federal facilities in North Carolina, across the country and Canada.

There’s a special kind of therapist making the rounds at Catawba Correctional Center. Her name is Lou Lou. “Good morning Lou Lou,” is echoed every day when folks encounter the friendly greeter.

She’s not an official employee, but more like a volunteer who gets paid with an occasional dog treat or a pat on the head. Lou Lou is the facility mascot, a dog serving as a daily reminder of the value of the life and joy she brings as man’s best friend to many men and women inside the fence at Catawba.

After making choices in life that led to prison sentences, participants in the Think Smart Program are sharing their stories with youth across North Carolina to convince them to avoid the same mistakes. 

The walls are white, the counters are antiseptic and the recliners are set comfortably next to treatment stations.

It looks like a typical medical outpatient clinic.

But this dialysis unit sits on the other side of barbed wire and heavy, steel electronically-controlled locked doors. The waiting room is occupied by a uniformed officer.

It’s in a prison.

The long-planned new kidney dialysis unit at Scotland Correctional Institution opened today (April 29), and will be able to handle up to 72 male dialysis patients a week.

Have you ever lost a job? Have you ever wondered whether you had the skills/education to find a job? Have you ever simply felt alone in a strange town without a safety net of family or friends? Consider shouldering all three of those scenarios simultaneously. A young person transitioning out of the juvenile justice system may feel the weight of all these pressures (along with the additional stigma that may accompany having been held in secure custody).

Fairmont – Phostenia McCrimmon, a United States military veteran and member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, has lived in her home since 1980. McCrimmon served in the army for three years before moving to North Carolina permanently. As someone who does a lot of community service within her sorority, McCrimmon was overwhelmed by the help that she received from both Hurricane Matthew and Florence. 

Wallace - Teresa Kelley, a Hurricane Florence survivor, has been a resident of the Town of Wallace in Duplin County since 2000. Her home is a half-mile from the Northeast Cape Fear River on a dirt road. Although the inside of Kelley’s home was not damaged by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, it was surrounded by water 10 feet deep.

Alexander Correctional Institution, like most Department of Public Safety entities, honors employees who served in the military during holidays such as Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day or Military Appreciation Week.

However, Alexander CI took it one step further recently. One big step, in fact.