Sheriff Paula Dance: Bringing Change to Pitt County, North Carolina
Paula Dance made history as North Carolina's first African American female sheriff. Now she's changing the narrative on detention and drug addiction.
In 2018, Paula Dance made history as North Carolina's first African American female sheriff. Reporter Leoneda Inge of WUNC public radio profiles the work of Sheriff Dance, whose untraditional views on the way justice systems work—and don't work—lead her to enact reforms on detention centers, on approaches to mental health, and for drug addiction treatment—with a voluntary peer treatment and education program that helps inmates fighting addiction support each other.