No Mercy For Repeat Offenders As “Iryna’s Law” Takes Effect In North Carolina

The murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, in August 2025 drew national attention because of the random brutality caught on camera.  But beyond that, it brought into question the ongoing decline of America’s prosecution and punishment policies, especially within Democrat controlled cities.

The trend within progressive enclaves is to reduce prosecutions in order to reduce crime stats.  Far-left district attorneys and judges also have a habit of cutting deals with repeat offenders in order to keep the prison system from being “overwhelmed.”   Often, they use the excuse that suspects require mental health services rather than long prison sentences.

Violent assailants are set loose on the unsuspecting public over and over again. 

The Iryna Zarutska murder suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., is a repeat offender with a history of 14 arrests including  armed robbery and assault.  He was released without bond months earlier.  The reason?  Brown was initially diagnosed with schizophrenia.  But doesn’t this mean he should have been locked up for good instead of being released over and over again?  

The notion of “rehabilitation” for such offenders is a fantasy.  Numerous psychological studies have failed to produce even the slightest change in the recidivism rate for violent criminals.  Though politically unsavory, the fact is that high recidivism rates are the historical norm and have never substantively declined. Criminal behaviors are habituated and manifest from early callous and unemotional traits in childhood that seamlessly unfold into antisocial personality dysfunction throughout adulthood.

A Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) study between 2008 and 2018 found that 66% of people released from prison in 24 states in were re-arrested within three years.  Of those re-arrested, 48% had an arrest that led to a conviction, and 49% returned to prison.  A review of 110 homicide suspects found that 82% had serious prior criminal convictions, 59% had a prior weapons offense, and 44% had prior violent crime convictions.

Multiple studies from countries around the world indicate that 1% of repeat offenders are responsible for over 60% of all violent crime and convictions. 

Under progressive policies, these criminals enjoy consistent protection from long term imprisonment.  Arguments include the claim that criminals are a “product of their environment” and that American society is to blame, not the perpetrators.  Leftists also assert that rehabilitation is superior to incarceration and that most criminals are “not bad people”, they simply face mental health obstacles. 

None of this is accurate.  Instead, leftist judges and politicians have created an system in which psychopathic offenders of certain demographics receive special treatment in the name of “equity” despite the risk they present to the general public.  Beyond that, leftists want to deconstruct the prison system, not expand it, because they view it as an “oppressive mechanism” of white supremacy.

The passage of Iryna’s Law in North Carolina is triggering a panic among Democrat officials who claim that requiring a bond for repeat offenders is going to pack their prisons; the very prisons they would prefer to defund.   

NC officials: “We are bracing for Monday, as you do when there’s a hurricane or a tragic storm that is coming.”

The new Iryna’s law will require violent criminals to be jailed instead of being released on the streets. pic.twitter.com/YD0xY9sH86

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) November 28, 2025

Critics also worry that harsher penalties for repeat offenders will open the door to the return of the death penalty. The bill passed the state House of Representatives 82-30 and the state Senate 28-8. Initially a bipartisan effort, 10 Democrats crossed party lines to vote with Republicans in the House. No Democrats voted for passage in the Senate.

Its main provisions enforce stricter pre-trial release conditions, mandate mental health evaluations for some defendants and expedite the process for implementing capital punishment. The death penalty changes were a last-minute amendment introduced by Phil Berger (R), president pro tempore of the state Senate, which caused Democrats to walk out. 

The statute virtually eliminates cashless bail for “violent offenses” and certain repeat offenders, as well as expanding the definition of “violent offenses.” For all offenses, it completely removes the condition to release a defendant on a written promise to appear.

In other words, common sense crime reform which should be the standard across the US.  Liberal crime theory has been an abject failure.  Rather than targeting the primary source of violent crime (repeat offenders) and locking them away for good, Democrats have chosen to hide stats by reducing prosecutions and convictions behind the facade of a mental health crusade.  Where they have failed in protecting the public, Iryna’s Law is likely to succeed.