With nearly 1,300 employees and a budget of nearly $80 million, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office is the third largest law enforcement agency in North Carolina.

The Office operates some of the most modern detention facilities in the nation:  Jail-Central, a 1,904-bed pre-trial detention and intake center; Jail-North, a 614-bed sentenced facility; and Work Release and Restitution Center, with 150 beds.  All feature direct supervision.   Nearly 40,000 inmates were processed last year in the Arrest Processing Center of Jail-Central.

The Civil Division serves an average of more than 8,000 legal papers each month; the Civil Judgement Unit, more than 11,000 papers annually.  A Special Domestic Violence Enforcement Unit--initiated by Sheriff Pendergraph to attack this growing problem--has made significant strides, successfully serving nearly 100 percent of court-ordered 50-B domestic violence orders each month.

The Court Services Division provides security for Mecklenburg County's civil and criminal court houses, in addition to providing bailiffs in each of the 27 court rooms.  Nearly 1.03 million people enter the two court houses annually, a daily average of some 4,000 people.