Carolina Politics Online

McCrory: When it comes to public safety, where has Perdue been for the past eight years?

New Bern, N.C. – Mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican nominee for governor, today presented his plan to improve public safety and reform North Carolina’s criminal justice system at the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association Conference in New Bern.  He highlighted many key differences between his record of effective executive leadership and the lieutenant governor’s record of supporting a failed status quo for the past eight years.

“When it comes to fighting crime, I’ve been on the front lines for the past 12 years while the lieutenant governor has turned a blind eye to the problems,” said McCrory.  “I’ve seen county jails overflowing with people sleeping on floors, gangs infiltrating our schools and illegal aliens filling our jails.  I’ve seen our state judges and district attorneys work out of cardboard boxes and I’ve seen our state mental health patients transferred to local jails.  When I led a bipartisan group of mayors and law enforcement officials to Raleigh to work on solutions to these problems, the lieutenant governor was nowhere to be seen.  Now she’s ‘forming a plan’ that’s ‘emerging and changing’ that calls for another government commission to meet in Raleigh and talk about the problems. Where has Lt. Gov. Perdue been for the past eight years?

“Now that she is campaigning for governor, Perdue is drafting a plan that should have been written eight years ago.  North Carolina needs a governor who cares about public safety even when it’s not an election year.  We need action and effective executive leadership.”

As Mayor of Charlotte, McCrory responded to an inadequate state criminal justice system by:

• Hiring hundreds of new police officers;
• Opening a local crime lab because the state lab couldn’t handle workload; and
• Transferring local funds to state district attorneys.

McCrory defined his vision for improving public safety if elected governor by saying he will work to:

• Increase salaries for judges and district attorneys;
• Lobby for an immigration court and detention centers for juveniles;
• Build a bigger and better crime lab;
• Pass anti-gang legislation with stronger penalties;
• Provide more flexibility for local administrators of courts;
• Build more prisons;
• Reform mental health program so we don’t have overflow patients going to local jails; and
• Lift the death penalty moratorium.

      I do believe that Perdue-D has been a do nothing Lt. Governor on many issues. She has failed to do anything as a member of the State Board of Education and on issues involving public safety.

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