98th Annual Conference
NCABCO focuses on criminal justice

Association holds business meeting, annual awards luncheon during NCACC conference

By Jason King
Information and Communications Specialist

The American criminal justice system is failing to rehabilitate offenders and is in need of an overhaul, according to a Wake Forest University professor.

Dr. Earl Smith, director of the American Ethnic Studies Program and former chairman of the Department of Sociology at WFU, addressed attendees of the North Carolina Association of Black County Officials’ business meeting on Aug. 26, held in conjunction with the NCACC Annual Conference in Mecklenburg County.

Smith touched on various problems and inequities that are occurring in prisons and with the system in general, a major of which being that prisoners are not being set up for success upon rejoining society. According to Smith, 70 percent of inmates who are released return to prison within three years.

“We need to know what these prisons do because most prisoners will eventually come back to the community in which they started,” he said.

“We don’t have one spec of evidence that shows that rehabilitation takes place in these prisons.”

Smith said punishments don’t always fit the crime, either.

Child molesters, for instance, are released more often and more frequently than other offenders, yet are four times more likely to be re-arrested for the same crime, Smith found.

He added that research reveals a bias within the system. White parolees receive a higher rate of call-backs from employment applications than African-American parolees, he said.

Also at the meeting, members re-elected 2004-05 officers to another term with one exception: Warren County’s H.E. Lucas and Lenoir County’s Jackie Brown will switch roles as secretary and assistant secretary. The association is working to forge a partnership with municipal and state officials and recommended maintaining officers in order to provide stability during the effort. The 2005-06 officers are:
President: Moses Carey, Orange County
First Vice President: Margaret Lewis-Moore, Bladen County
Second Vice President: Walter Marshall, Forsyth County
Secretary: Lucas
Assistant Secretary: Brown
Treasurer: Viola Harris, Edgecombe County
Membership Co-Chairs: George Graham, Lenoir County, and Norman Mitchell, Mecklenburg County

Association doles out honors at awards luncheon

NCABCO honored five distinguished guests at its annual awards luncheon on Aug. 27.

Robeson County Commissioner Noah Woods, Julius Chambers of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, MaryAnn Black of Duke Health System, and retired NCACC Executive Director Ron Aycock were honored at NCABCO’s annual awards luncheon. (Photo by Jason King)

Retired State Auditor Ralph Campbell Jr. was presented the Frederick Douglas Leadership Award; MaryAnn Black, associate vice president of community affairs for Duke Health System and a former Durham County commissioner, was named winner of the Outstanding Leadership Award; and Julius Chambers, director of the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights, was given the Humanitarian Award.

Past NCACC President Noah Woods of Robeson County won the Service Award, and retired NCACC Executive Director C. Ronald Aycock was honored with the President’s Award.

In addition, for the first time the association presented three scholarships.

Dr. Jonathan Morgan, an economic development specialist with the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also spoke at the luncheon.

Morgan is leading the SOG’s efforts to aid local government officials in recruiting new and expanding current industry. The school is providing research, training, advice and technical assistance to local governments, particularly those without full-time economic development directors.

Morgan said economic development officials have realized that large industries are few and far between and that they need to refocus their efforts on existing industry for retention and expansion, and that the SOG can help local governments create the right mix of economic development strategies.