By Joel Burgess
Asheville Citizen Times
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Buncombe County government has been awarded a $1.8 million grant to cut its jail population, reduce violence and decrease racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
The money is the latest installment from the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge that has now given the county a total of $3.6 million since 2016, helping spur a 30% average monthly reduction in jail population for 23 months, Buncombe Justice Services Director Tiffany Iheanacho told the county Board of Commissioners Feb. 16.
The money will go into maintaining and advancing current programs, including diversion of potential inmates to behavioral health and substance abuse treatment, enhancing pretrial services, improvements to case processing, supporting ongoing community engagement, advancing racial equity, and the launch of a new community safety and violence prevention initiative.
Full story: Buncombe gets another $1.8M to reduce ‘over-incarceration'; exceeds 15% jail reduction goal