Articles Posted in Charlotte Crime

According to some recent local news, it appears that juvenile crime rates in Mecklenburg County have been dropping recently due to work by the police to fight teen crime and gang activity.

Numbers released from the state recently reveal that while overall violent crimes have declined by nearly 14% in the state since 2002, the number of teens younger than 16 charged with violent crimes has dropped by nearly 37%. In Mecklenburg County, the juvenile crime rate closely reflected the drops seen across the state, decreasing each year between 2007 and 2010. Despite a small rise last year, the juvenile rime rate was 29.72 per 1,000 youths, still below the 2007 rate of 31.75.

Though juvenile crime is down nationwide, the numbers show that North Carolina’s drop is almost twice as great as other states. Some say the reason is that the legal system has begun to emphasize treatment and early intervention as approaches to deal with crime among young people rather than simply punishing offenders. As a result of this new approach, the state is locking up far fewer teens than it did a decade ago.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have been commended for working hard to avoid putting young criminals into the system by giving them the opportunity to participate in programs that require them to pay restitution and receive counseling. For example, if a juvenile is caught vandalizing a building, police might take him home and make his parents aware of the situation. But rather than making a formal arrest, the officer may set him up in a deferral process that sends the young person to alternative programming rather than juvenile court.

Many of these changes got their start 15 years ago when the state legislature revamped the existing approach to juvenile justice. Legislators implemented a program that was designed to treat juveniles according to the seriousness of their crimes, the risks they posed and their personal histories. The system was changed to rely more on therapeutic alternatives and less on simple punishment.

The reforms took a while to kick in, but starting in 2006 the number of children being sent to detention centers began to drop. The change is dramatic, according to state officials who say that in 1998, North Carolina locked up 1,400 children each year in such centers while today there are only 300 kids in such facilities.

Continue reading

According to WCNC, five women in Charlotte have been arrested in connection with prostitution.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police say they received anonymous tips from people complaining about prostitution activity near Frontenac Avenue and Eastway Drive, south of The Plaza. Robberies, as well as various other incidents of crime, have been reported in the area which led police to focus attention on the vicinity.

The police say the department sent uniformed and undercover officers to saturate the area to help lead to the arrest of the prostitutes. The operation was successful from the police’s point of view, as five women were arrested earlier this week and charged with various prostitution-related crimes.

Prostitution and related offenses are outlawed in the state of North Carolina. In a rather brief section of the law, North Carolina General Statutes § 14-204 defines prostitution and other related offenses including pimping and brothel ownership. Loitering is considered an offense on its own, and multiple convictions of all related offenses result in more severe penalties.

North Carolina law defines prostitution as the receiving of or the offering of the body for sexual intercourse for hire. Penalties for prostitution and patronization of a prostitute are Class 1 misdemeanor charges and result in sentences of up to 45 days in jail or a fine. Defendants may receive probation in lieu of imprisonment. Individuals with more than two convictions within a year may be convicted of a crime in the first-degree, resulting in a more severe penalty. Sentencing for first-degree crimes includes imprisonment for 1 to 3 years and a fine.

Continue reading

According to an article in the Charlotte Observer, the problems at North Carolina’s State Crime Laboratory are growing worse, something that has prosecutors and defendants alike waiting for results and worrying about the future.

The lab director, Joseph R. John Sr., says that an increase in evidence submitted for testing has magnified problems caused by the already tight budget and is responsible for the long wait times common these days. The lab’s budget is only $13.3 million, down from $13.6 million. Money is tight and the numbers are down. Since 2009-10, the crime lab staff has dropped to 124 from 130. Shockingly, there are only 12 toxicologists for the entire state, compared with some 20,000 law enforcement officers.

The strain is being felt in terms of active cases that have been held up by the delayed analysis. Driving-while-impaired cases are frequently being continued while prosecutors wait for test results. Just this month, prosecutors in Haywood County dismissed a DWI case against a man with two prior convictions. Prosecutors say they waited six months for the test results and another eight trying to get the former analyst who performed the test to testify in court. Apparently the analyst who did the testing quit at some point after performing the test and would not accept subpoenas sent via certified mail. Without the analyst, prosecutors could not use the results of the blood test and the case was dropped.

Though it may seem hard to believe given the enormous workload waiting on them back the office, many lab workers find themselves increasingly pulled away to testify at trials. The reason is because of a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that required the person doing the blood testing to take the stand if the defense objects to the admission of the test results. The number of court hours, including travel, for forensic toxicologists in Raleigh grew from just less than 700 hours in 2009 to more than 2,400 hours in 2010.

John said the North Carolina General Assembly has authorized a study looking at expanding the Asheville crime lab and he has pressed that the group be given more money to adequately perform its critical function.

The problem is a big one as defendants have a constitutional right to a speedy trial and if an accused person cannot afford to post bail, long delays in processing evidence lead to a protracted period waiting in jail for a trial. Defendants whose rights are compromised by a long wait to process evidence may even feel compelled to plea bargain and accept responsibility for crimes they did not commit, just to hurry the process along and get out of jail sooner.

Continue reading

Some bad news has been reported for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department after data indicates a recent string of crime rate declines have come to an end. Three years of major drops in crime have abruptly stopped and been replaced with glaring jumps in a variety of crimes across the city.

Since the beginning of the year, homicides in the city have increased by an astounding 40% compared with the same period last year. Robberies are up 17% and aggravated assaults have spiked by 14%.

Such a development is unexpected under the new police chief, Rodney Monroe, who took over the department in 2009 and presided over an unprecedented drop in crime. Almost immediately when he moved into his new role, the numbers began falling. In fact, in 2011, the department announced that the crime rate had fallen to the lowest level since it started keeping consistent records in the 1970s.

When the new numbers were revealed, the department emphasized that the trend in the city over the past three years is still downward for most crimes. The only exception over a three-year period is aggravated assault, which saw a 12% increase.

The approach used by the current police chief has resulted in lower crime than any of his other predecessors. Chief Monroe’s department focuses less on geography and more on identifying specific criminals and locking them up before they can commit additional crimes.

The larger picture across the state shows good news and continuing drops as the North Carolina attorney general announced that statewide crime dropped for a third year in a row. The drop marks a 34-year low and part of several decades of declining crime rates.

Continue reading