The Robeson County jail, built in the early 1990s, is supposed to hold up to 410 people. As of May, it had a population of 501.
Overcrowding has plagued the jail for months, according to records from the state Department of Health and Human Services. Sheriff Burnis Wilkins said he has had to buy cots and extra blankets because there aren’t enough beds.
State inspectors have ordered the jail to reduce its numbers. They noted after a December report that jail officials were asking other counties to take the overflow of inmates and working with the court system to “expedite low-level cases” to get people released.
But Wilkins told The Assembly and Border Belt Independent he hasn’t had much luck. Many other county jails are also full, and Robeson County often has a backlog of court cases caused in part by high crime rates.
Iryna’s Law, which the General Assembly passed last fall, is making the problem worse, according to Wilkins and other officials around the state. Among many things, the legislation restricts pretrial release of alleged violent offenders and eliminates written promises to appear in court. Since it took effect in December, magistrates and judges are issuing more secured bonds that require defendants to pay cash or put up collateral to be released. That means more people who would have previously been released are staying in county jails longer.
“There was no funding to help us with anything,” said Wilkins, who wants the state to help pay to expand the jail. “We had to continue to work with what we have.”
Jail populations fluctuate, and some in North Carolina are chronically overcrowded. Others have seen dramatic spikes over the last five months, according to data from the state Department of Health and Human Services.
The Carteret County jail had 73 inmates in May 2025. The number was up to 146 last month, although the facility’s capacity is 117.
Jails in Wake and Mecklenburg counties have seen significant overcrowding this year. Wake County’s main jail was below its capacity of 1,094 inmates in the first few months of 2025. This year, the jail has blown past that number, with 1,170 inmates as of last month. Both counties have announced they are opening up long-closed detention facilities to make room.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman partly blames the new law.
“I think it’s still early to draw any complete conclusions, but we certainly have seen what appears to be an increase in our jail population that correlates to the effective date of Iryna’s Law,” she said.
Limited Resources
The legislation passed last year is named for Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old refugee from war-torn Ukraine who was stabbed to death on a Charlotte light rail train in August 2025. State and federal investigators charged DeCarlos Brown with her death, and he could face the death penalty if convicted. But forensic psychologists have twice found Brown mentally incompetent to stand trial. A competency hearing in the case is set for June 9.
Surveillance video of the brutal killing went viral, reaching all the way to the White House. Republicans have used the case as a political cudgel against Democrats, particularly U.S. Senate candidate and former N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper, painting them as soft on crime.
State Republicans pitched Iryna’s Law as a way to keep violent criminals off the streets, and both chambers of the General Assembly passed the bill within 48 hours of each other last September. Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, signed it into law days later.
Republicans argued that tough-on-crime laws would have kept Brown imprisoned and prevented Zarutska’s death. But as The Assembly previously reported, it’s not that clear-cut. Before the stabbing, Brown, who had a documented history of mental illness, had been arrested in January 2025 for allegedly misusing the 911 system. The magistrate released him on a written promise to appear in court. Even if Brown had been locked up, he still would have been freed long before that fateful day on the light rail. The maximum sentence he faced was 45 days in jail.
Freeman said she understands the importance of public safety, but the law should allow defendants an opportunity to demonstrate in a court hearing that they should be released on bond. That has been difficult in Wake County.
“We are already struggling from a lack of resources among prosecutors, public defenders, court time,” she said. “The reality of developing mechanisms by which people’s conditions of release can be considered has been very challenging and will continue to be challenging.”
Angelica McIntyre, the chief district court judge in Robeson, said the county doesn’t have enough space in its courthouse or jail to process the increasing number of people held who can’t afford to pay a secured bond.
“Any time we get new legislation that requires a change for everybody,” she said, “it’s important that we have resources there to support that change.”
“We are already struggling from a lack of resources among prosecutors, public defenders, court time.”
Lorrin Freeman, Wake County District Attorney
Adrian Cox, budget director for Mecklenburg County, said the county has increased funding by $5.3 million this year to sustain jail operations in response to the rising jail population. The jail so far has also seen a $1 million surge in food costs.
Cox said many factors have contributed to rising costs, including the simple fact that inmates are staying longer.
Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden, who was unavailable for an interview, has previously blamed Iryna’s Law for overcrowding at the county’s main detention center, where the inmate population has surged to more than 2,000 within the last six months. McFadden was an early critic of the law, saying in December that he had already seen an 18% increase in the jail population over the previous year.
“I think they should have taken into consideration that we are already dealing with this,” McFadden told television station WCNC. “Come to us and say, ‘How can we better manage this?’”
Forsyth County is facing similar issues, County Manager Shontell Robinson said. In May, Forsyth County commissioners approved a contract amendment for Aramark Correctional Services, which provides food at the Forsyth County Detention Center. County officials cited Iryna’s Law as one of the main reasons the jail population has averaged between 900 and 950 inmates in 2026. County officials had anticipated a population between 800 and 850, according to county documents.
Officials in Guilford County also cite Iryna’s Law for rising jail populations. The population at the Greensboro jail, one of two in the county, increased 16.5% over the last six months. The High Point jail experienced a nearly 13% increase over the same period. Bria Evans, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said more people are remaining in custody who would ordinarily be released on a written promise to appear in court. Evans said that has placed higher demands on facility operations, staffing, housing, food services, and medical resources.
Eddie Madden, who served as Columbus County manager until June 1, said during a commissioners meeting last month that Iryna’s Law is just the latest legislation that has “unintended consequences at the local level.” The county expects to lose $600,000 in the upcoming fiscal year because it will no longer have jail space to rent to federal agencies that pay a per diem rate to house people held on federal warrants, Madden said.
Defending the Law
Eddie Caldwell, executive vice president of the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association, has strongly supported Iryna’s Law and said that it has little to do with the rising number of inmates in some counties’ jails. He said he has not heard any complaints from sheriffs and that any number of factors could have contributed to rising jail populations.
He said one major factor is the backlog of people who need to be transferred to state prisons to serve their sentence. There are about 1,200 of those inmates waiting in jails, Caldwell said.
He also said that many magistrates and judges stopped setting low bonds for violent offenders in reaction to Zarutska’s death, not the law.
Many counties have overcrowding, Caldwell argued, because elected officials failed to properly prepare for a higher number of inmates. They should have expanded or replaced existing jails, he said.
Told that some sheriffs and county officials have cited Iryna’s Law in interviews and public statements, Caldwell responded: “I suggest you call each one of those sheriffs or managers and ask them to provide you with the data analysis that they’ve done to attribute their situation to Iryna’s Law.”
Republican legislators still defend the law.
“Too many innocent lives have been taken by repeat offenders who should have never been allowed back on our streets,” a spokesperson for House Speaker Destin Hall said.
Senate Leader Phil Berger did not respond to a request for comment.
Involuntary Commitments
A provision of Iryna’s Law that does not go into effect until December 2026 requires more people charged with crimes to undergo involuntary commitment proceedings. The N.C. House passed legislation this month directing state officials to recommend ways to improve the process by which judges can order someone experiencing a mental health crisis to be evaluated by medical professionals. The bill calls for the state Department of Health and Human Services and the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association to study whether telehealth could be used as a way to administer initial evaluations.
Hall’s spokesperson said the new law will help provide some relief: “The changes in Iryna’s Law were intended to do just that–ensure that people accused of serious violent offenses receive greater judicial scrutiny before being released.”
Wilkins, the Robeson County sheriff, agrees that violent offenders should not be released back into the community. Two of his deputies were shot and injured in 2023 while trying to arrest a man charged with murder who cut off his ankle monitoring device after being released on bond.
But, Wilkins said, his jail would need to double in size to accommodate more inmates.
“If everyone would just straighten up and not get in trouble to come to jail, you wouldn’t have to worry about it,” he said. “But for those that decide that they just want to be a repeat offender and keep coming back, I’ve just got to have more space.”