NCAJ's leadership, encouraged by James E. Williams, Jr., the Public Defender of Orange and Chatham Counties, created the Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Criminal Justice System in 2010. This initial group was populated by attorneys, policy makers, community leaders, and scholars to study racial bias in North Carolina’s criminal justice system. The Task Force laid very important groundwork that enabled the Commission to grow into the broadly representative group it is today.

The Task Force first took up research examining data on traffic stops across the state of North Carolina. Since January 1, 2000 the North Carolina Department of Justice has collected information on roadside traffic stops per GS § 114-10.01. The majority of law enforcement officers must report information that includes, but is not limited to, the age, sex, and race of each individual s/he stopped for routine traffic enforcement. This database had not yet been analyzed until the Task Force partnered with University of North Carolina Political Science Professor Frank Baumgartner to produce a statistical study.

The report found that while African Americans make up 22% of the overall population, 38% of the people pulled over for “vehicle regulatory” issues, 37% of people pulled over for “vehicle equipment” issues, and 33% of the people pulled over for “other vehicle” issues were African American. Once stopped, the data show that African Americans and Latinos are almost twice as likely to be searched and twice as likely to be arrested than white drivers.

The Task Force also studied the related issues of prison population, drug crimes, and habitual felon status. Disproportionate numbers of African-Americans and Hispanics were found in each category.

An analysis of June 30, 2011 data collected from the North Carolina Department of Correction’s Research and Planning Division, show that African Americans make up 57% of North Carolina’s prison population, but only 22% of the State’s population. In Durham County, African Americans are nearly nine times more likely to be incarcerated for criminal conduct that Caucasians, with Edgecombe and Warren Counties close behind with ratios of 7.5 to 1, and Mecklenburg with a ratio of 6.9 to 1.

Furthermore, in North Carolina, African Americans are two times as likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes, with some individual counties having ratios that are much more extreme. Finally, the review of discretionary charging of habitual felon status, which results in enhanced sentencing, indicated that African Americans are 2.46 times as likely to be incarcerated as habitual felons than whites, with African Americans representing 70% of all incarcerated habitual felons.

The Task Force was mostly comprised of defense attorneys and community advocates who were not surprised by these numbers, but were deeply concerned. They strongly felt that collaboration among the State’s leadership, criminal justice stakeholders, and civil rights organizations was imperative to creating an effective response to the data findings. Members of the Task Force distributed the Baumgartner report and the other studies to the North Carolina Attorney General’s office, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and legislators calling on them to join in the creation of a Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Criminal Justice System. You can read the letter sent to North Carolina’s leadership here. All individuals contacted responded favorably, joining the Commission themselves or sending delegates from their offices. Several members of the original Task Force have since joined the Commission.

The Commission was incorporated in December of 2013 as an unincorporated association with twenty five professionally diverse members. We have as active participants Court of Appeals and Superior Court Judges, Police Chiefs, defense attorneys, professors, District Attorneys and Public Defenders. The Task Force originally received funding from the Governor’s Crime Commission in 2012. Operational funding was secured for the newly formed Commission for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2013. The first full-time staff member, the Program Manager, was hired in September 2013. The American Bar Association awarded NCAJ $24,000 over two years to support the work of the Commission in its pretrial project.

Task Force Membership List

NCAJ Task Force Mission Statement

Statement on NCAJ Taskforce on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Criminal Justice System

Formation of the NCAJ Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Criminal Justice System -Trial Briefs article

Letter to NC Leadership  

Commission Membership List