Go Directly to Jail (or Is It Prison?)

Last week the News and Observer ran an article about a legislative proposal to send more inmates to county jails instead of DOC facilities. A separate part of the plan proposed to reduce or eliminate reimbursement payments the state sends to the counties for certain inmates held in the jails. Both proposals appear to have been tabled for now, but I get questions about these issues (where to serve, and who pays), so a blog post seemed appropriate. Regarding where a sentence should be served, the defaults under current law are set out in G.S. 15A-1352 as follows: * Misdemeanants sentenced to 90 days or less must serve their time in a jail, except when the custodian of a jail certifies that it is full under G.S.148-32.1. Many county jails have "overcrowding letters" on file with DOC, specifying that sentences exceeding a certain length (e.g. 30 days, or 60 days) will be served in prison, not in the jail. I sometimes hear people refer to 180 days as the jail-prison cutoff point. That was the case under older law, but Session Law 1993-538 changed the threshold to 90 days. * For misdemeanants sentenced to over 90 days, the judge decides where the time will be served, DOC or the jail. * Felons must be committed to DOC, unless the sheriff or the board of commissioners of a county request that the person be sentenced to a local confinement facility in their county. As for reimbursements from the state to the counties, [...]