GPAC call-in scheduled for this Tuesday at city hall
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on September 18, 2017 5:50 AM
The final Goldsboro Partners Against Crime call-in session of 2017 will be held Tuesday at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
Capt. Theresa Chiero, GPAC coordinator, said 17 offenders will be notified during this session.
The GPAC call-in is a program that requires people on probation and charged with repeated violent crimes, involving drugs or weapons, to hear warnings from local, state and federal law enforcement officers.
To be notified as an offender is to be warned that this is your last chance to get your act straight and turn away from a life of crime -- or suffer the full weight of the justice system.
Once the 17 offenders are notified Tuesday, 293 people will have been called in since the program began in 2012.
Returning to speak to the offenders about their own experiences with the consequences of crime are Craig Doubt, Theresa Cox, Jose Ochoa and Lisa Tindal.
A local pastor, Marvin Alexander, is GPAC's new community resource person as of June, and will attend the Tuesday call-in to speak with the offenders.
Alexander is responsible for following up with those who have been notified and making sure they have the resources they need to leave crime behind.
"After all of them are notified, he's making contact with them to see what type of services they need, whether it be employment, education, things like that," Chiero said.
Chiero said surveys were sent out Sept. 6 to people who have already been notified to see where they are now.
None of the surveys have come back with answers yet, and some are being returned due to a lack of a forwarding address for the offender the survey is being sent to.
"The surveys were basically asking them did they take advantage of the resources that were offered to them, have they reoffended, is there something we can do differently," Chiero said.
Those being notified Tuesday will also hear from a law enforcement panel that will lay out the nuts and bolts of how severely they will be prosecuted if they reoffend.
The community is invited to attend.