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On Thursday, Governor Perdue and I, along with local law enforcement leaders, spoke at an event in Raleigh to announce improvements to our state probation system.

The Governor signed her probation reform bill – which does three key things:

•    makes warrantless search a condition of all probation cases

•    extends the authority to conduct warrantless searches to law enforcement officers with reasonable suspicion

•    gives probation officers limited access to the juvenile criminal records of offenders that they supervise

We also outlined how we have sped the process for obtaining warrants from the Parole Commission for those who violate parole or post release supervision.

Troopers and police officers demonstrated how they can now access information from the Department of Correction in their patrol cars – telling them instantly if the person they have stopped is on probation or parole, or is wanted as an absconder or escapee.    This information is now automatically returned with a driver’s license check.

We continue taking other steps to improve our probation and parole system using guidance and recommendations from the National Institute of Corrections.   We’re pressing the legislature to provide more probation officers on the streets.  We’re making progress on reducing officer caseloads and we’re moving to implement fundamental changes in how we assess offender risk levels and how we supervise offenders based on the risks they present to our communities. 

If you have a degree in criminal justice, social work, psychology or a related field and have an interest in probation work -- we’re hiring now.  Check out our available positions at http://tinyurl.com/mxbtad.   It can be difficult and challenging work, but helping someone turn away from a life of crime can be one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do.

The results are in from the annual statewide Spring Litter Sweep and we are pleased to report that state prison inmates cleaned 7,263 miles of roadway and collected 85,320 bags of litter during the two-week trash reduction effort in May.  The campaign represents 113,990 hours worked by male and female inmates. 

This program is an excellent example of safely using inmate labor to significantly reduce litter along our state highways.  The comments we receive at the Department of Correction clearly reflect the appreciation by the citizens of North Carolina.

Each year, the Litter Sweep happens during two weeks in the fall and spring.  Adopt-a-Highway volunteers, local governments, schools, churches, businesses, concerned citizens and inmates conduct community cleanups in all 100 counties across the state. 

But highway trash pickup is not limited to the two litter sweep periods each year.  Inmate crews are out on the roads every weekday when there’s acceptable weather.  We’ve worked with DOT to make our litter pickup zones on urban interstates safer and more visible.  Give our officers and inmates a brake and drive safely through litter pickup zones.  A little bit of caution goes a long way.

One of my goals as Secretary is to expand the use of evidence-based practices in the Department of Correction, making that a standard part of the way we do business.  Using evidence-based practices in the corrections field means focusing resources on interventions and treatments that research shows are statistically proven to reduce recidivism.

For many years, corrections agencies placed offenders in programs or followed treatment regimens simply because they thought those programs worked well.  Often those programs had little or no impact on changing an offender’s criminal lifestyle, or preventing their return to prison.

One program that we know works, based on research and experience, is Cognitive Behavioral Intervention (CBI).  It’s sometimes called “think before you act” because that’s what it teaches offenders – to contemplate the consequences of their actions beforehand.  Too often, criminals lack these basic cognitive skills and they act impulsively, and it gets them into trouble.  Recent research conducted for the International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology examined 58 cognitive behavioral programs and found that on average, they reduced recidivism by 25%.

We recently received news about a CBI graduation ceremony for probationers in Carteret County.  Twelve offenders graduated from the program and a large group of family, friends, church members and even treatment sponsors were there to support them.

Here are some of the comments from those graduates:

“CBI is helping me relearn to use my emotions to my benefit instead of my downfall.”

“This class changed my life more than anything I have ever done.”

“CBI gave me the skills to handle a situation, rather than it handling me.”

“CBI helped me to feel again and to recognize my goals.”

Sometimes you really have to get down to the root level and change someone’s thinking habits in order to get positive outcomes in other areas.  That’s part of what we do in corrections.  Our goal is to find more programs that work as well as CBI and put them into practice.

The Department of Correction recently named Bob Lewis to lead the Division of Prisons after Director Boyd Bennett retires in March.

We are grateful for Boyd’s 37 years of service and leadership, especially for his work since he was named division director in 2001. Since then, the prison population has grown from 31,900 to some 40,000 today, and we had to build large new prisons and expand others.

Directing the division is one of the most massive individual responsibilities in state government. The division is an agency with a $1 billion budget and nearly 18,000 employees. That alone is a huge management challenge, and it’s compounded by society’s expectation that we protect the public by “correcting” the mindset of the inmates that society sends to us.

That is the challenge now awaiting Bob Lewis. He was chosen for that challenge, because he has 35 years of North Carolina corrections experience that have given him a deep understanding of our core mission – protecting the public’s safety. I am confident that he knows that we must do all we can to ensure that that mission is accomplished.

He has a history of commitment and understanding, and I don’t expect that to change.

Last week, I met one-on-one with two Cumberland County probation officers -- not in my office or theirs, but on the streets at night while they worked, checking on the whereabouts of probationers.

From my observations, they did their jobs well.

We met in Fayetteville, where I live. My ride-along with them was somewhat eye-opening, and it held a surprise, too.

They had me in the front seat as they entered one neighborhood with unpaved, ungraded streets and little or no lighting. The officer had to use a spotlight to find most house numbers, where darkness veiled whatever might have been going on. And in that setting, where I imagined that a state car shining a light was drawing a lot of nervous attention, the officer had to pound a door to verify that a probationer was where he said he would be at that hour of the night.

I followed as they approached homes where the porch was dark, the house was dimly lit inside, and no one answered after numerous knocks on the door. All the while, we didn’t know what might be about to happen.

The last stop of the night hit close to home, literally. The probationer lived two blocks from my house. It was a telling turn of events, driving home to me the point that our justice system almost always returns offenders to their homes – be they probationers or inmates released from prison. It is their homes, their families, their neighbors - and as I saw, all of us are neighbors - who need to join the Department of Correction as we try to break the cycle of crime.

The community must work harder to prevent crime and my department must work harder to change the offenders’ mindset. And when offenders go back to the community, all of us must be committed to doing whatever we can to give each one of them a chance to become a productive citizen.