May 3, 2007
North Carolina lawmakers should reject new mandatory penalties that will disproportionately affect at-risk children and youth of color
Last year, FAMM worked with others to stop gang legislation that would have increased the number of young people exposed to new, extremely harsh prison sentences. North Carolina already has tough sentences for serious and violent crime. The legislature should invest in education, prevention and intervention, instead of spending hundreds of millions to build more prisons for North Carolina’s youth. Unfortunately, gang bills are once again pending in both the Senate and House. FAMM and many other organizations have been working hard to stop or modify them.
SB 1358, introduced by Sen. Graham (D-Mecklenburg) and HB 274, introduced by Rep. Michaux (D-Durham) are a flawed approach to problems of youth delinquency and violence.
Among the problems with the bills:
- The bills define a gang much too broadly. The bills expose children (age 12 and over in HB 274) and youth (age 16 and older in SB 1358) to harsh sentences and lifelong identification as “gang” members. According to national experts, most youth who actually join gangs remain in them for less than a year. Many troublesome youth groups (e.g. skateboarders) are mistaken for gangs, say national experts. Under these bills, youth from the same neighborhood who wear similar “hip hop” clothing and engage in even minor drug use offenses could be identified as gang members and face stiff prison terms.
- The bills are too costly. HB 274 and SB 1358 provide $10 million in funds for prevention and intervention – a good start. However, conservative fiscal projections find that HB 274 will cost nearly $45 million in the first year and tens of millions more over the coming decade, if just one percent of the new offenses resulted in convictions. North Carolina is already facing a crisis in overcrowded prisons and mounting corrections costs that are squeezing out funding for the very programs that most effectively address gang activity in communities. North Carolina prisons were operating at 116 percent of capacity at the end of 2005.
North Carolina already has tough sentences for serious and violent crime. The legislature designed North Carolina’s sentencing guidelines to put violent and serious offenders behind bars for a very, very long time. Murders, assaults, gun crimes and drug trafficking are already severely punished. Currently, judges in North Carolina can (and do) increase sentences for gang-related conduct under the guidelines and judges can allow juveniles to be tried in adult court.
FAMM will keep you posted on the progress of the bills through ealerts and our website, www.famm.org.