A Bright Spot
Adult Corrections Advisory Committee

Central Prison changes way of dealing with mentally ill inmates – News & Observer
Updated Mental Health Audit Corrective Action Plan
Letter from Secretary Young and Chief Deputy Secretary Lancaster – Thank you for participation on Advisory Committee
State Withdraws RFP for Privatizing Forensic Psychiatric Hospital Beds – see stories below
GEO Care confirms it won’t pursue hospital
Update: State continues talks with GEO Care about High Point mental hospital
Central Prison Inpatient Mental Health Review

Thank You Letter for Meeting with NAMI NC on Prison Issue

Response from Keller to NAMI Alamance/Caswell/Rockingham

Please read these articles below for more on the issue.

Father says Central Prison mistreated his mentally ill son

State review finds mentally ill inmates neglected in prison

Perdue calls treatment of NC inmates unacceptable

Keller defends Central Prison ward

McCrory chides Perdue over prison report

Group protests prison mental care

Petition for a Redress of Grievances (PDF)

Letter to the Editor concerning the NC Central Prison (PDF)

Letter to the Editor from NAMI Alamance/Caswell/Rockingham in Burlington Times

What can you do?

  1. Read and familiarize yourself with the Petition for a Redress of Grievances
  2. Write an editorial on how we must improve prison conditions and hold our leaders accountable
  3. Contact your newspaper asking that they print the petition for redress in their local paper
  4. Tell your story especially if it involves a criminal justice encounter with a loved one, when you call your paper
  5. Write your legislators
  6. In short- make a lot of noise!!
  7. Share your ideas with the NAMI North Carolina office – 800-451-9682

What else is NAMI North Carolina doing?

  1. We are contacting NAMI to see if they can assist
  2. We are working on a press release
  3. Deby Dihoff, NAMI NC Executive Director, plans to ask for a meeting with the Governor and the Secretary of Corrections, Alvin Keller
  4. Deby Dihoff personally worked on rewriting the prison rules which passed the Commission but are awaiting a fiscal note.  Ironically, those updates contain much of what is needed to clean up this mess.
  5. Thoughts on having a simultaneous WALK around the state to protest this state of things?

What exactly is the Petition of Redress of Grievance?

  1. Article One of the US Constitution guarantees the right of people to ask the government to provide relief for a wrong through the courts or other governmental action
  2. No need for signatures or that kind of thing that we usually think about with petitions
  3. No definition of number of people to be involved
  4. Essentially, this is a method for getting government to act to correct the wrongs for which they must be held accountable

Finally- let us know how it is going!  We hope by next week to see a huge growth in the number of newspaper articles, and we hope to have an appointment to meet with the Governor.