There are over 200 available beds at the DART Center. No wait. Today’s post talks about that and other things we learned on a recent visit to Goldsboro.
Last week, 20 court officials participated in a program called Correctional Facilities Tour: East, a class I offer through the North Carolina Judicial College at the School of Government. The group included superior court judges, district court judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and clerks. We visited the DART Center in Goldsboro, Harnett Correctional Institution in Lillington, and the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh. The purpose of these experiential learning programs is to get out of Chapel Hill to hear directly from the staff and the men and women serving sentences at each location. We’ll do a similar program in the western part of the state next year.
I’ll write about the prison visits in future posts. Today I’m focused on the DART Center (formerly DART Cherry), North Carolina’s lone state-run substance use treatment center for men on probation, parole, or post-release supervision. Belal and I have both written about the program in the past (Belal’s most recent post, which is excellent, is here), but I’m going to share my notes from our visit last week—mainly to address some frequently asked questions about the program.
Probationers. The DART Center is a 90-day residential program, primarily for probationers. It can be ordered as a special condition of probation for any type of probationer—Community, Intermediate, or DWI—under G.S. 15A-1343(b1)(2) (“Attend or reside in a facility providing rehabilitation, counseling, treatment, social skills, or employment training, instruction, recreation, or residence for persons on probation.”). It can be ordered at sentencing or as a later modification of probation. No probation violation is required to open the door to sending a person to the DART Center; it is a modification that can be made for mere “good cause.” G.S. 15A-1344(d).
Parole and PRS. The North Carolina Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission orders a small number of DWI parolees and post-release supervisees to the DART Center as a condition of parole or PRS. Long ago, there was a 28-day version of the program for those defendants, but today it’s the same 90-day program that probationers complete.
NOT active sentences. The DART Center is never the place of confinement for an active sentence or a revoked probationer. It would be wrong, for example, for a judge to say, “I’m revoking your probation, but I’m going to recommend that you serve your time at the DART Center.” It will not happen. If a judge wants a person to attend DART, he or she needs to sentence the defendant to probation or keep them on probation. If you want to recommend substance use treatment in prison, you would “recommend ACDP.” That’s Alcoholism and Chemical Dependency Programming, which is available in selected minimum and medium custody prisons.
Split sentences. A judge can order special probation confinement days (that is, the imprisonment portion of a split sentence) to be served at the DART Center. G.S. 15A-1351(a) (“For probationary sentences for misdemeanors, including impaired driving under G.S. 20-138.1, all imprisonment under this subsection shall be in a designated local confinement or treatment facility.”); G.S. 20-179(k1).
Not CRV. The DART Center is not a CRV center. CRVs are completed either at the CRV center for men (Lumberton), the CRV center for women (North Piedmont in Lexington), or in a regular prison.
Many beds are available. There seems to be a persistent misconception that the DART Center is full. It isn’t and hasn’t been since the pandemic. The facility has capacity for 300 residents. There were 89 men there when we visited last week.
There is no waitlist. There is no wait for a bed at the DART Center. The notion that there is a wait to get a bed may stem from the fact that the facility starts treatment group cohorts every four weeks, and DAC runs transport buses on a schedule that corresponds to the start date of each group. The DART Center calendar (2026 here, 2027 here) shows the “transport weeks” in green. To fully decode those calendars, you need to reference the county “hub” sheet available here, which says which counties are assigned to which bus hubs, and what day and time they pick up.
Here’s an example. Suppose you’re in Orange County, wondering when the monthly DART Center shuttle runs. If you look at the 2026 calendar, you’ll see that this week is a green transport week. Down at the bottom of the calendar, you see that during green transport weeks, THURSDAY pickups are for Hubs 6 and 7. Now if you look at the hub sheet, you’ll see that Orange County feeds to Hub 6 at 10:00 a.m. on Thursdays. So, today, Thursday, November 5, is the transport day for an Orange County probationer ordered to the DART Center.
Why am I going into such detail on that? First of all, are you a new reader? That’s sort of my brand. Fifteen years ago, I wrote a post on how DAC measures months that included this sentence: “The ultimate effect, mathematically, is a minimum of 395 days [that’s (1 x 365) + (1 x 30)] and a maximum of 485 days [(1 x 365) + (4 x 30)]. A 31–38 month sentence would be 940 days [that’s (2 x 365) + (7 x 30)] to 1155 days [(3 x 365) + (2 x 30)].” I’m sorry.
But in this context, I’m writing about the bus schedule because I think it matters. First, if a person is in a real crisis, it may be critical to know whether a new cohort starts soon. The person might hurt themselves or someone else before the next class begins. Second, in some cases, a person might need to be held in the jail pending transport to DART, and the judge might need to have some indication of how long that delay might be. (More on that in a moment.) Third, defense counsel might want to be able to advise the defendant on how things are going to play out. And finally, everyone needs to know that you don’t have to wait for the bus. The DART Center has what they call “emergency beds,” and they will accept a sentenced defendant on any working day (Monday through Thursday would be best). In those situations, a local probation officer will transport the defendant to Goldsboro right away.
Sentence length. There is no requirement that a defendant have at least 90 days on his or her suspended term of imprisonment to attend DART. That’s true notwithstanding the jail credit rule noted below.
Deferred prosecution and conditional discharge. In fact, a person does not need to have a sentence at all to attend DART. The facility will accept defendants on probation pursuant to a deferred prosecution or conditional discharge under G.S. 90-96, G.S. 15A-1341(a4), or other similar statute.
Probation length. A person does, however, need to have enough time remaining on probation (at least three months) to attend.
Preferred judgment language. The DART Center program is 90 days, but sometimes a person needs a little more time (typically less than one extra week) to complete the program, perhaps due to a medical issue or other interruption. With that in mind, staff recommended not saying “90-day DART” on the judgment. Instead, say “Attend and complete the DART Center.” Leaving out any reference to a particular number of days allows the defendant to complete the program in, say, 93 days, without needing to return to court for a modification of the judgment.
Not detox. The DART Center is not a detox facility. That can raise serious medical concerns for defendants at risk for withdrawal from alcohol or benzodiazepines.
Jail pending entry. Given the bus schedule and, in some cases, the need for a person to detox before attending DART, it is sometimes recommended that a defendant be housed in the jail for some time period before coming to Goldsboro. Some judges effectuate that by ordering a split sentence of a length that leads up to the next hub transport day. Others manage that pre-DART confinement through pretrial release. My thought is that you need some lawful basis for the confinement. I will add that your sheriff might tell you that the jail isn’t a detox facility either.
No tablets. You may know that all prison inmates in North Carolina have access to electronic tablets, which allow them to communicate with family and friends by phone or texting. DART Center residents do not have tablets. There are communal phones, but access is limited. One resident with whom we spoke talked about how he had better communication with his family from prison than he does at the DART Center. I’m not writing this as a criticism—just telling you what we saw, for whatever help it may be in your work.
Chemical dependency screening. Under G.S. 15A-1343(b3), a person ordered to the DART Center (or Black Mountain, the comparable program for women) must undergo a screening to determine chemical dependency. The typical path for that screening is a TASC assessment. The idea is that a person should attend DART only if the results of their screening show that they actually need it. I suppose that makes sense—and was perhaps even more important when the DART Center didn’t have enough space to accommodate everyone sentenced to it. Anecdotally, longtime staff at DART told us that only very rarely (like, once every few years) do they see a situation where a judge has ordered a person to TASC only to find out later that their assessment did not indicate a need for residential treatment. The statute says the screening can happen either before or after the court imposes the condition, and program staff told us they could use a previous assessment completed within the past 6 months to satisfy the statute.
Multiple visits. Facility staff told us it is not uncommon for a person to participate in the DART Center program multiple times, and they have no rule against it.
MAT/MOUD. The DART Center can provide medication-assisted treatment (MAT) and medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) for defendants who are already under such treatment in the community before they arrive at the facility. They cannot initiate MAT/MOUD if it was not already in place.
Jail credit. A defendant gets jail credit for every day they spend at the DART Center. State v. Lutz, 177 N.C. App. 140 (2006).
It was a good visit, and I’m grateful to the program staff who hosted us and the residents who shared their stories. As with any School of Government program I do, my goal is not to convince anyone that any program should be used more often or less often. Rather, my hope is that by seeing these facilities first-hand, participants will be better equipped to decide for themselves whether ordering or recommending a program will achieve their sentencing goal, whatever it may be. I hope the notes shared in this post will serve a similar purpose.