Advocates urge Wake County to rethink $172 million detention expansion, propose investing in pretrial services and data dashboards

During the general public comment period at its Feb. 17 meeting, Peter Van Dorsten, director of the North Carolina Interfaith Cash Bail Reform, urged the Wake County Board of Commissioners to pause or reconsider a roughly $172 million budget proposal to reconfigure and expand the county detention facility over the next three years.

Van Dorsten told the board his group’s interest is reducing the number of low‑income people jailed pretrial because they cannot afford bail. He said the county should consider alternatives before expanding jail capacity, including expanding the county’s pretrial services program, which he said would be less expensive and more effective for many defendants.

Van Dorsten also urged the county to benchmark against similarly sized counties he said have lower detention bed capacity and to publish and use public data dashboards to better understand charges, demographics and how many detainees are jailed only because they cannot afford bail. He said he left a packet of supporting materials, including spreadsheets and links to benchmark counties and examples of data dashboards used elsewhere.

Van Dorsten recommended investment in information technology so Wake County can better answer questions about detainee needs — how many require treatment, how many are unhoused, and how many are detained solely for inability to pay bail — and to manage jail capacity more effectively.

No action was taken during the meeting on the matters raised in public comment. Van Dorsten concluded by asking the commissioners to "make better use of our tax dollars than spending it on a jail expansion we don't need," and offered to discuss the materials with county staff in another setting.