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.
You could hear a pin drop in the grand ballroom at Greensboro’s Koury Convention Center. More than 500 people from community and faith-based organizations, as well as representatives from law enforcement agencies, the judicial system, government agencies and the state legislature had gathered for North Carolina’s first Reentry Summit.
The first graduation ceremony of the year’s first class of basic probation/parole officer trainees came complete with the pageantry, and pomp and circumstance of a major state event. What made this occasion different than those Community Corrections had hosted in the past was one, the location, and two, the special keynote speaker.
When the age of juvenile jurisdiction increases (also known as Raise the Age) on Dec. 1, 2019, there will be new faces aplenty. Included among those are obviously the faces of the older youths that Juvenile Justice will now be serving, but they won’t be the first faces to show up. With Raise the Age comes the growing need to serve more kids, so we need new staff faces!
On Feb. 21, Department of Public Safety leaders briefed legislators on ongoing efforts to reform the state’s prison system, stressing the safety of employees remains paramount.
Much of the presentation by Tracy Little, deputy secretary for Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice, to the Joint Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee on Justice and Public Safety focused on what is needed to make sure facilities are manned to safely supervise offenders and ensure the protection of prison staff.
Gary Mohr had high expectations prior to leading the two-day Prisons Leadership Development Workshop on Feb. 18-19. He knew he had an audience hungry to receive skills they could take back to their facilities, and he had the morsels to provide the nutritional needs.
Following the workshop, Mohr was extremely happy not only with what he saw from the group but his vision of where the North Carolina prison system is heading.
DPS Secretary Erik A. Hooks knows that keeping our schools safe requires a “whole of community” and “whole of government” approach. That’s why, in April 2018, he charged the Governor’s Crime Commission’s Special Committee on School Shootings (SCSS) with developing recommendations reflective of that concept to present to Gov. Cooper.
CAYTON - Hundreds of searchers from local, state and federal agencies along with public volunteers spent more than two days looking for three-year-old Casey Hathaway in Craven County before he was successfully located Thursday night. The boy had been playing near his grandmother’s house when he wandered into the woods and did not return – spending two nights outdoors in freezing and rainy weather.
Among those working the search were NC Emergency Management employees Alex Auten and Hendrix Valenzuela from the NCEM Eastern Branch Office.
At the first hint of winter weather, Southerners are notorious for rushing to the store to stock up on bread and milk. Will it be a five loaves, two-gallon storm? Or more of a single-loaf, half-gallon flurry?
While we can laugh at our snow/milk obsession, we are serious about ensuring your family is ready for winter weather. And with the season’s first winter storm on the horizon, now is the time to review those emergency plans and update those supply kits that may have been depleted during recent months.
As part of prison reform efforts at DPS, the Office of Staff Development and Training has conducted situational awareness training for prisons’ personnel, including anyone who works in a prison environment such as Correction Enterprises’ employees.