About Us

RedressNC is an initiative designed to reflect a community-wide determination to unwind decades of retributive policies and to refocus criminal justice administration to prioritize public safety, accountability, racial equity, and restoration of community.  Retribution and fear as underpinnings of our criminal justice system share an ugly legacy with our nation’s original sin -- racism and the systematic oppression of African Americans. Through collaborations with District Attorneys, faith communities and civic and fraternal organizations, RedressNC seeks to unwind this history.  

-> To provide individuals, families and communities harmed by violent crime in Mecklenburg County an alternative justice system response that is centered on their expressed views of recovery, restoration, and safety.  

->To enhance public safety by adding to available criminal justice responses to violent crime measures that more effectively hold offenders accountable for their crimes.

->To inform, engage and mobilize communities to better hold our criminal justice system accountable for mass incarceration practices that harden and disable offenders rather than correct or rehabilitate.

-> To facilitate difficult but important conversations with community institutions, museums, local colleges, faith communities, and civic forums on topics such as 

• the recommendations by the Governor’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice (TREC) to develop and implement solutions that will eliminate disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system for communities of color.  Read the final report here, the executive summary here, and the recommendations chart here 
• the Model Penal Code recommendation to address extreme sentences (See, The American Law Institute, Model Penal Code: Sentencing (2017); Criminal Justice Facts, The Sentencing Project;  https://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/; Marc Mauer & Ashley Nellis, The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences (2018))
• the replacement of retribution with restoration as the fundamental goal of criminal justice.  (See, Susan Herman, Parallel Justice for Victims of Crime, National Center for Victims of Crime (2010); Danielle Sered, Accounting for Violence: How to Increase Safety and Break our Failed Reliance on Mass Incarceration, The Vera Institute of Justice (2017);  https://www.vera.org/publications/accounting-for-violence)