AG 1999 01 19 - Laserfiche WebLink

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In Cabarms County, as in all counties in North Carolina, most cases are disposed of by guilty plea negotiations. Trials are infrequent, and jury trials are very infrequent. Table 5 shows the total number of cases resulting in convictions in 1995, 1996 and 1997. This data was collected by the Administrative Office of the Courts. An acceptable ratio of cases to persons is 2: 1. TABLE 5 I 1995 1996 1997 No. of convictions (cases/persons) I 315/157.5 403/201.5 455/227.5 The rate of convictions in 1997 was 3.64 per 1,000 citizens, or 364 per 100,000 citizens. COMMUNITY OR INTERMEDIATE SANCTIONS Structured Sentencing went into effect October 1, 1994 and prescribes community and intermediate sanctions for certain offenders, based on the severity of the crime of ': L,~ defendant's prior criminal record. A communit~ sz,:c:[z:: {z a suspended sentence ~hich includes one of the following: fine, unsupervised probation, regular supervised probation, community service, restitution, Treatment Alternatives to Street Chine, or outpatient substance abuse treatment. An intermediate sentence is a suspended sentence which includes supervised probation and at least one of the following: special probation/split sentence, intensive supervision probation, electronic house arrest, assignment to a residential facility, assignment to a Day Reporting Center, or an approved Communitv Penattv Plan. Regular supervised probation, intensive probation, electronic house arrest and IMPACT are administered by staff in the Division of Community Corrections (formerly Adult Probation/Parole) in the Department of Correction. In Cabarrus County, under the reorganization scheduled to be completed in the summer of 1999, there will be five intensive teams and nine Intermediate officers. Intermediate officers will handle ali Intermediate offenders as well as all DWI levels 1 and 2 (who will be treated as Intermediate offenders). Regular probation officers will handle court work, replacing Administrative officers, and will supervise all Community offenders and those on post release supervision. House arrest with electronic monitoring uses computer technology, via a transmitter strapped to an offender's ankle and linked by telephone lines to a central computer, to monitor and restrict an offender's movement and can be used as a special condition of supervised 7toga:ion, post-release supervision or parole. Probation/parole officers supervise these cases and respond to violations during regular work hours. Designated electronic house arrest response officers respond to violations after regular work hours. Cabarrus County has the benefit of strong Community Penalties and Community Service pro,ams. Community Penalties provides assessment services to determine an offender's