Republican legislative leaders announced Monday the creation of a new oversight subcommittee to investigate COVID-era prisoner releases carried out under former Gov. Roy Cooper.
House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell; and Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said the Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations Subcommittee on Prisons will examine the decision to release more than 4,200 inmates early as part of a settlement between the Cooper administration and advocacy groups, including the ACLU and NAACP.
The new subcommittee’s main task will be to investigate the decision-making process around early prisoner releases during the COVID era, including the conditions attached and how parole was managed. It will also examine the role of current Gov. Josh Stein, whose Department of Justice represented Cooper during the lawsuit while Stein was attorney general.
The list of individuals released was not made public until earlier this year, when the Government Operations Committee obtained and disclosed it.
Berger sharply criticized the former administration’s handling of the releases.
“Roy Cooper opened the floodgates and then did the bare minimum to inform the public about the criminals being released into their communities,” Berger said. “He made every effort to hide what he did, and Republicans in the General Assembly are going to hold him and Gov. Stein accountable for releasing violent, repeat offenders and endangering our citizens.”
Hall framed the investigation as a matter of public safety and government accountability.
“Public safety is the most important responsibility of our government,” Hall said. “If Roy Cooper or any other official failed at this most basic responsibility, the people of this state deserve to know about it. The release of violent, repeat offenders back onto our streets is a serious miscarriage of justice. This committee will investigate exactly how these early release decisions were made, who was responsible, and whether proper safeguards were followed.”
The subcommittee will be co-chaired by state Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson; and state Rep. Brenden Jones, R-Columbus.
Other members include state Sens. Lisa Barnes, R-Nash; Woodson Bradley, D-Mecklenburg; Danny Earl Britt Jr., R-Robeson; Warren Daniel, R-Burke; Terence Everitt, D-Wake; and Amy Galey, R-Alamance. House members include state Reps. Amber Baker, D-Forsyth; Celeste Cairnes, R-Carteret; Grant Campbell, R-Cabarrus; Allen Chesser, R-Nash; Lindsey Prather, D-Buncombe; and Mike Schietzelt, R-Wake.
The panel will also review broader issues within North Carolina’s prison system, including staffing, inmate health care, facility consolidation, rehabilitation, reentry, recidivism, and the Justice Reinvestment Act.
The move comes as lawmakers are already weighing broader reforms to the state’s mental health and criminal justice systems. A recent House committee report called for expanding telehealth evaluations in jails, increasing the mental health workforce, addressing psychiatric bed shortages, and improving data sharing across agencies to fix what lawmakers described as an overburdened and fragmented involuntary commitment system.
