Topics Related to DPS Dispatch

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.

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.