Social & Criminal Justice and Public Safety Day - Class of 2023

For our March Leadership Wilmington session, we spent the day learning about Social & Criminal Justice and Public Safety in our community.

Laura had us arrive bright and early at the Haynes Lacewell Police and Fire Training Facility where we were greeted by Dr. Kimberly Cook, Professor of Sociology and Criminology at UNCW to kick off our day with a conversation about the Restorative Justice Collaborative at UNCW. This collaboration between the university and our community aims to resolve pain and conflicts caused by crime through restorative practices. Dr. Cook makes a very intentional effort to learn about each and every person in cases that she takes on, so she knows exactly how to formulate her dialogue around the different needs and feelings involved. She emphasized that every person has the desire to share their own truth and given a safe setting, this structured dialogue can lead to a “truth-telling process”. She noted that restorative justice practices explicitly promote racial justice, particularly as it relates to the historical harms of institutional racism. Given that Wilmington is still facing generational trauma from the 1898 Massacre, we still have a long way to go for healing in our community.

One of the main things I personally took away from the conversation with Dr. Cook was her choice of words when speaking about her restorative justice practices – feelings, personal truth, compassion, desire, needs. Her intentional word choice alone gives a sense of authenticity and is free of judgments.
 
Next up, we heard from Donny Williams, Wilmington Police Chief. As a Wilmington native, Chief Williams has seen our community grow and change drastically over his lifetime. In recent years, Wilmington has seen a decrease in overall crime rates – 2022 had the lowest crime numbers in over a decade. While his main attribution to the decrease in crime comes from the collaboration between various community groups and proper training among law enforcement, Chief Williams is also implementing many different things within his own department. One example he noted was that traffic-related incidents were the leading cause of fatalities, and his officers are now equipped with bright clothing items and reflectors for any pedestrians that they see on or near the roads at night in dark-colored clothing.
 
Wendy Giannini-King, the Risk Reduction Coordinator for the Wilmington Fire Department then stepped in for Chief Mason to give an update on their goals to reduce fire risks and increase preparedness for our community. Wendy showed us a map she’s created with outlines of each part of Wilmington and their respective fire departments, along with the risk level of each area and the call trends. Given that the majority of calls that the WFD responds to are not emergency calls, they believe that continuously educating and assessing the different needs of the community will lead to a more risk-prepared city.
 
James H. Faison III, District Court Judge of the Fifth Judicial District joined us next to provide us with a unique perspective on Social & Criminal Justice and Public Safety Day. As a District Court Judge, he presides over juvenile cases, Family Court, Drug Treatment Court, and DWI Treatment Court. He also serves as Chairman of the Advisory Committee for Drug Treatment Courts for North Carolina. Judge Faison focused on the issues we are facing with the opioid epidemic and family structures. He mentioned that issues we see today stem from trauma-related instances whether that’s childhood traumas, generational trauma, etc.

Judge Faison is extremely involved in our community and has a deep connection to improving the quality of life of those that he serves. He also believes that community collaboration and partnerships are the most important factor in this sector of our community.
 
We then heard from Benjamin David, District Attorney for New Hanover & Pender Counties. He did not hesitate to set the tone of his presentation by telling us about an induvial who has been in and out of our criminal justice system for over 20 years. The root of her long journey is also tied back to trauma – a general theme we heard from many of our presenters. Thus, leading to his explanation of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) score. ACEs are “adverse childhood experiences and adverse community environments which contribute to trauma in children”. Children who are faced with some sort of trauma are more likely to end up as offenders or victims in our court system. The main focus of this system is to reach the children that are facing impacts from trauma early on “treating the root causes of crime” – he says children are resilient but need the resources and support to overcome that adversity.

To lighten the conversation a bit before eating lunch and heading out to our next location, we were visited by the wonderful Sadie Frye and Drew Easton from WARM. As the WARM Volunteer Coordinator, Sadie gave us a handful of tips and tricks when it comes to gaining and retaining volunteers for WOW. Drew, WARM’s Field Supervisor, provided us with the day of details for maintaining a strong volunteer team.

We then loaded up on our Daniel’s Tour bus and headed to the New Hanover County Detention Center where Keri Williams, Detention Officer, gave us a tour of the facility. She and the accompanying officers pointed out several times that those serving time in this facility are here because of a wrong decision. They are still human, and they still deserve to be treated as such. A class member asked Keri if she knew what each individual was in the facility for at any given time and her response was summed up as…”while there are some officers who have to know, I am able to choose not to know. Each person deserves the same amount of respect no matter their wrong decision, so I want a blank slate in order to give an unbiased view of the individuals I’m interacting with on a daily basis”. During our Q&A the officers made us aware that, like many other institutions, staffing is currently their biggest issue. They need the community to know about the opportunities that they have. One officer mentioned that “this is a place where you have the ability to have a positive effect on someone’s life at the worst time in their life. It’s hard but it makes a difference.”

We hopped back onto our bus, got a chance to debrief, and then headed over to end our day with Frankie Roberts, the Executive Director at LINC. LINC’s mission is “to educate and motivate youth to make positive life choices and to empower men and women returning from incarceration to be productive members of our community.” Frankie set the stage by telling us about his own personal story that led him to create LINC and then had three previous/current residents share their stories and provide detail on how they have been able to overcome incredible circumstances due to the resources they’ve been provided through this organization. One emphasis from this session was about the issues that these residents are being faced with in our community in reference to the lack of affordable housing and the lack of housing/jobs that are available to individuals with a criminal background. How are these individuals able to thrive in our community if they’re unable to have a stable foundation to grow from? And how are we, the business community, helping to stop this cycle?