State Prison

When North Carolina prison leaders decided to close this minimum-security state prison, the closure was announced as only being temporary citing staffing shortages and budget cuts. Now, the facility sits abandoned. Since 2017, every state in the country has reported prison staff shortages. On the high end, Georgia, Mississippi and Maine have an average vacancy rate of 50%. However, staffing issues may not have been the real reason for the closure. A few years prior, the state prison made headlines after allegations surfaced of abuse and corruption.

A North Carolina prison officer in a maximum-security prison earns an average salary of $35,000 per year while officers in a minimum-security facility, only averaged $32,000 per year. Staff drove long distances daily due to the facility’s rural location, and many complained that most of their paychecks went to gas. The work is dangerous, and with a high turnover rate and a statewide vacancy rate of 20%, prospective officers were not well vetted. Drug dogs were seldom brought in and officers were rarely made to empty their pockets when they report to work. These conditions coupled with a relaxed prison atmosphere allowed corruption to thrive.

A large part of the corruption came from prison guards smuggling in contraband to sell. Some of the items smuggled in included cigarettes, alcohol, condoms, pornography, various narcotic drugs, weapons, but mostly cell phones. All of which were eventually sold to prisoners. Guards willing to engage in illegal activities find it very lucrative to work in the prison system. For instance, a cheap Wal-Mart cell phone could sell in prison for as much as $700. A pound of marijuana, once divvied up and sold to inmates, would sell for as much as $9,000.

Prison officials set up a drug sting to bust the culprits at the state prison. During their operation, they uncovered activity between a prison guard and an inmate serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. A female guard was paid $2,500 to smuggle in cell phones and a pound of marijuana. This exchange was made every two weeks for two years before being caught.

While many prisoners use contraband cell phones to keep in touch with their family members and friends at a lower cost than using the prison phone system, and to access the Internet, some use them to extort “rent” from the families of other prisoners or mastermind a criminal plot from behind bars. Once prison gangs battle over control of the contraband trade, things can turn deadly, especially when prison staff is collaborating with one of the gangs. Numerous instances of prison employees being attacked or threatened by inmates were documented.

Rampant corruption was not the only thing that gave this former prison a notorious reputation. It was also considered one of the most dangerous prisons in the South while in operation. Decades of old local newspaper articles highlight the goings on inside the prison walls and sometimes outside. Death notices seem to be the most common type of notice. In the early 1990s, an inmate serving a life-plus 50-year sentence was discovered hanging from a sheet in his cell. A year prior, authorities discovered the body of an inmate in a nearby river who escaped after climbing two barbed wire fences and attempting to cross the river. Years later, in the late 1990s, when three inmates attempted to escape, all three were shot, and two of them were killed by officers.

One news source found that, since 2012, at least 70 North Carolina prison guards have been charged with crimes committed while on the job and another 50 for felonies committed outside prison. Over 65 guards were fired for having inappropriate relationships with prisoners; more than 400 were terminated for on-the-job misconduct. Many others resigned while under investigation. After closing, several ideas about what to do with the outdated facility were discussed including transforming it into a jail. An inspection uncovered a number of problems, making a new build more cost-effective.

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