North Carolina’s court system spends less per resident than any other state-funded court system and critics charge that paves the way for a system-high number of repeat gun offenders, according to a Charlotte newspaper.
According to an opinion piece in the Charlotte Observer, over the last four years, upward of 20 homicide suspects might have been incarcerated prior to their own suspected killings had they been convicted of a previous gun crime.
Researchers also noted the situation is not helped by roughly seven in 10 of all weapons cases in nearby Mecklenburg County being dismissed, a rate that is higher than any other urban North Carolina county and a development that could explain why the region has more repeat gun suspects than any other county in the state.
Although many law enforcement professionals clamor for tougher gun laws as a way of combating the trends, the Observer notes authorities have not always made use of the tools already at their disposal, namely a 2013 state law that calls for a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for some repeat gun offenders.
Meanwhile, North Carolina courts continue to be among the most underfunded in the country, prompting Senior Resident Superior Court Judge W. Robert Bell to place much of the blame for the state’s rising violence in another area.
“I think the crime is that the third co-equal branch of the government is funded with about 2.5 percent of the budget,” Bell told the Charlotte Observer, pointing to a nearly $1 billion budget surplus some lawmakers have boasted of recently.
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