Our work experience began with Travis, Gabriella, and I meeting with Professor Jamie Markham on Zoom. He is a professor at the UNC school of government, who works a lot with criminal justice and corrections. In particular, he has been working a lot recently on a newly introduced bill to the North Carolina General Assembly, Senate Bill 300.
Senate Bill 300 serves as a fairly comprehensive overhaul of policing and the justice system and covers quite a significant number of topics. The bill covers things like making a public database to track officers’ suspensions and infractions, giving an officer the duty to prevent the use of excessive force when seen in the field, and increasing offenses for rioting and assaulting an officer (something Mr. Markham says was a legislative compromise in order to gain more support for the bill)
He then assigned us to focus on researching a few of the key topics in the bills that are widely debate. For example, using satellite monitoring on sex offenders (supreme court case Grady v. North Carolina), the legality and constitutionality behind releasing police body camera footage, and overcriminalization by stopping violations of a city’s code of ordinances from going on someone’s criminal record.
Mr. Markham also informed us that we will get the opportunity to visit a senate judiciary committee meeting next week where they may potentially be debating this very bill we are researching.