Years after Charlotte’s juvenile jail closed, some hope for its return

Nearly three years after Sheriff Garry McFadden closed Mecklenburg County’s only juvenile detention center, some in the criminal justice system still hope for its return.

State public safety leaders and local advocates agree: Something important was lost when McFadden shut down the facility once known as Jail North.

Today, much of the building sits empty in north Charlotte, and local teenagers charged with crimes are sent to a state juvenile facility in Cabarrus County.

On Wednesday, cobwebs hung there. Some in the hallways were decorations for a planned Halloween event; others, in long-abandoned pods, were real. Classrooms where inmates once learned are now used by sheriff’s office staff. Meals are still cooked there and taken to Detention Center Central in uptown.

For years, state Department of Public Safety Deputy Secretary William Lassiter has tried to persuade McFadden to do something with the building that once housed 72 teenagers. While North Carolina is responsible for juvenile jails, Lassiter has argued that Charlotte saw benefits when the sheriff’s office ran one.

“I tried to lease. I tried to buy. I tried to offer incentives for them to do it,” he said. “All those have been rejected. At this point, I feel like the ball is in their court.”

McFadden has his own plan to reopen the jail — one that the state called unfeasible.

But with an election set for next year, it might not be McFadden who decides what happens next.

A ‘model’ for others

By the sheriff’s own account, the juvenile jail was a success.

He used to visit weekly, he said, and saw teenagers there playing flag football, badminton and other sports.

McFadden keeps artwork from one teenager who stayed at Jail North in his office. It’s a detailed, shaded drawing of a man inches from the ground, struggling to lift himself against a judge’s gavel that wants to pin him down.

Another wrote a memoir that McFadden has kept. In the acknowledgments, the author thanked the sheriff by name for making a difference in his life.

“I don’t know what they’re getting at other facilities,” McFadden said. “We give them time… We had speaking engagements. We had public speaking classes. Families loved to come there because they (could) interact with their children.”

A collective of local advocacy groups known as Children’s Alliance credited Jail North’s programs. Those groups have also tried to persuade McFadden to reopen the facility.

“Additional vocational training was offered, which created new options for these youth to consider upon release,” the groups said in a position paper. “This detention center was hailed as outstanding and served as a model for other jurisdictions.”

It was convenient logistically, too.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools worked in Jail North, meaning teenagers could continue their education without having to enroll in a new district.

With the jail being just a 15-minute drive from the county courthouse, it was easier for teenagers charged with crimes to make their court date, District Attorney Spencer Merriweather said in an interview.

That was good for victims and their families, Merriweather said, as it meant fewer cases getting delayed.

Jail shut down, conversations stalled

In 2022, McFadden closed Jail North.

Staff working there were moved to uptown, where they worked with adults instead of teenagers. Short staffing numbers and other issues forced the sheriff’s hand, he said at the time.

The law says juvenile justice is a state responsibility. Jail North was always optional, even if it was beneficial. Housing adults and ensuring they are in a safe facility, however, is something that sheriffs are legally mandated to do.

In an interview on Monday, McFadden repeatedly said he would like to reopen Jail North.

“Do I want to open the juvenile detention center? Absolutely, 100 percent,” he said.

But hiring more than 90 people to work in the facility would be long, involved work, even if the state helped pay for some of those employees, McFadden said.

Why not open it on a smaller scale?

“If you’re going to open it up, and it goes max on the first week, then what are you going to do?” McFadden said. “Whether you entertain one person for mental health or 14, you still have to have a doctor for mental health. You cook 14 chicken sandwiches versus 100 chicken sandwiches. You know what you still need? A cook.”

Why not lease it to the state? Or sell it?

“How are they going to staff it?” he said of DPS.

Lassiter, the deputy director who oversees juvenile justice, said he has tried to find a solution with McFadden for years. He recently gave up, he said. It’s up to the sheriff’s office to say what it needs, he said.

McFadden’s idea not feasible, DPS says

McFadden proposed an idea to the Observer: The state could shut down the juvenile detention center in Cabarrus County and move all its staff to work for him in Mecklenburg County.

Overnight, they could start reporting to McFadden, he said.

“I hate to say this. It’s kind of like ‘The Jeffersons’ — kind of movin’ on up,” he said. “You move from this facility to this facility, and I’ll give you what you want.”

McFadden has floated the idea before, DPS spokesperson Matt Debnam said in an email, and it’s not feasible for a few reasons.

First, the employees working at Cabarrus County’s juvenile jail are state employees, Debnam said, meaning they applied specifically to work for North Carolina, and there’s no way to simply transfer them to a county job.

Also, closing the Cabarrus facility “would not help alleviate capacity issues currently facing the juvenile justice system, and would in fact result in a net loss of juvenile detention beds,” Debnam said.

Jail North had capacity for 72 beds. The Cabarrus County facility has 158.

What’s been lost

While wanting a juvenile jail in Mecklenburg County again, Merriweather is sympathetic to McFadden.

“I’ve got to make resource decisions in the things that I control, so I get it,” the district attorney said.

Still, he said, Jail North came with benefits, and not just for the teenagers kept there. The community at large could feel safer.

“When you’re talking about sending a juvenile to a possibly overcrowded place (where) many people would consider the conditions to be substandard — then the judge is having to factor in things that don’t have anything to do with public safety, or anything to do with the correction of that juvenile,” Merriweather said.

A pending lawsuit in federal court alleges poor conditions at the Cabarrus County facility. The lawsuit mentions Jail North’s closure.

The Department of Public Safety is not shy about those problems.

“The reality is, right now, in juvenile detention, we’re overcrowded,” Lassiter said, not speaking about the lawsuit specifically. “We’re short-staffed.”

Three facilities in Rockingham County, Perquimans County and Richmond County have opened since Jail North closed. That’s given the juvenile justice system “breathing room,” Lassiter said, but facilities across the state are still at capacity, and some teenagers are having to sleep in cots.

Statewide there are 425 minors in facilities and only 407 beds for them, according to DPS.

Amid what he described as a “juvenile crime wave” in the city, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings has also said it is time to reopen Jail North.

“We stand with the state in support of reopening Jail North to support juvenile detention needs in Mecklenburg,” Jennings wrote in an Observer editorial last year. “I strongly advocate for more compensation for staff, and more programming and resources. We must address these issues holistically. We will not be able to arrest our way out of them.”

Jennings did not respond to an interview request for this story. He routinely ignores questions from the Observer.

Candidates want to reopen facility

That leaves McFadden — for now.

The sheriff has not decided whether he will run for reelection next year, he told The Charlotte Observer. But two of three candidates running want to reopen Jail North. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Sgt. Ricky Robbins and former Detention Officer Antwain Nance said they would seek to do so.

(Former Chief Deputy Rodney Collins said he has other priorities before reopening Jail North, and that the facility became “a drain on resources and a tax burden at some point.”)

Could a new sheriff change the conversation?

“I could be a Puerto Rican,” McFadden said, dismissing the idea. “It’s still not going to change. Tell me the formula, how to hire 96 people.”

Nationwide, law enforcement agencies are in a yearslong trend of struggling to hire and keep people. Factor in that CMPD, Pineville police, Huntersville police, the Highway Patrol and other agencies are also hiring, McFadden said. Then factor in the other jobs that his own agency needs to hire for.

“Everybody’s recruiting from the same pool of people,” he said.

All the same, state and local public safety officials, judges and children’s advocates have been discussing Jail North since it shut down. They are not likely to stop anytime soon.

Juvenile crime has been a recurring concern in Charlotte for years, and crime in general has become a major political issue for local officials.

Jail North is a public safety issue, Lassiter said.

“We’ve got to make sure that those kids get the best services they possibly can while they’re in detention, so that when they come back to your neighborhood, your community, they’re going to be a better kid,” he said.

Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.

This story was originally published October 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.