Disclaimer: All information discussed in this article is meant to remain anonymous and is in no way referring to any particular incident or person(s). All information is public record that was accessed through the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
Being the curious individual that I am, I often find myself looking through public records to see what I can dig up.Last week, this curiosity brought me to North Carolina Department of Public Safety's Offender Public Information. At first, I was looking up specific people for my own personal investigation, but then I was so intrigued by what I found that I wanted to share it with others. For the purpose of this article, I chose a common last name to search: Johnson. I then viewed 400 criminal records at random. You won't believe what I found.
Firstly, some crimes happen a lot more than others. I noticed some trends as I was viewing the records that were very interesting.
The most popular crimes committed were larceny and shoplifting charges. Larceny charges were often paired with breaking and entering or vehicular breaking and entering charges.
The second most popular crimes committed were drug-related charges. These charges consisted of possession of drugs, distribution or selling of drugs, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Most offenders with these charges had multiple charges or different kinds of drug charges at one time. Most distribution and selling charges were filed as Class G, meaning that the offender sold of distributed between 50 to 2,000 pounds of drugs. That's a lot.
I also noticed while going through these files that offenders had some sort of sexual offense on their records. These sexual offenses ranged from assault and battery to indecent liberties with minors to rape. I would like to say that I was surprised, but I wasn't. In light of the #metoo movement, it has become more apparent than ever that these things happen all the time to pretty much everyone. In fact, it is actually comforting to know that these charges were filed and the offender was sentenced because it shows that there was some sort of consequence for these actions.
When it comes to the number of charges on each record, there is a large range. Most offenders had anywhere from 2 to 143 charges in the 400 files that I viewed. That is not to say that there isn't some offender that committed more than the ridiculous 143 charges, and there are definitely people out there who have committed less than two charges.
Those with singular charges on their records were usually charged with DUI or DWI charges.
There are some crimes that I rarely saw, but did find while viewing these 400 files. Arson was only found in 30 of the 400 files that were viewed and was usually paired with damage to property and trespassing charges. Other charges that were rarely seen were murder (thank god) and larceny of motor vehicles.
Even though I viewed 400 files, there were some that were incredibly memorable.
One offender had 76 counts of writing worthless checks. They also had charges of credit card fraud and robbery. Someone seriously needs to take this person's checkbook.
Another offender had 62 counts of possessing stolen goods and receiving stolen goods. If you're missing something they probably have it.
The MOST INTERESTING thing I found while viewing all of these records is that people ESCAPE JAIL way more often than people realize. Thirty-five different offenders had charges for escaping jail, bringing it to a grand total of 40 charges. Some people did it more than once. In fact, when you access a criminal record on the North Carolina Department of Public Safety's Offender Public Information, the question "Escapes?" is placed at the top of each record with either a Y for yes and an N for no. If it didn't happen so often, it wouldn't need to be at the top of each file.
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety's website also allows you to search each county in North Carolina to see if anybody is escaped in your area. I searched my county to find that 3 PEOPLE have escaped, only one of which was back in custody. This person is now back in custody after being escaped for 10 YEARS ON A MURDER CHARGE! The other two offenders have been missing since 1992 and 2000.
If anything, let it be known that people escape from jail A LOT more than you think they would. I highly recommend searching your county on the North Carolina Department of Public Safety's website and seeing whether or not an offender is on the loose. If you have any information that you think could be even the slightest bit helpful, please speak up! It truly could save someone's life.
