In 2023, Governor Roy Cooper announced the creation of a statewide Office of Violence Prevention located in the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. By coordinating efforts across state agencies and partnering with local leaders, the office focuses on reducing violence and firearm misuse in North Carolina. Working closely with other state agencies, including the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the office works to ensure a whole of government and public health approach to reducing violence. The office offers training and technical assistance, issues best practice guidance and model processes, facilitates information sharing across state and local leaders working to reduce violence, conduct public awareness campaigns, share data, collaborate with research institutions, and identify and apply for funding from federal and philanthropic sources. In 2024, Governor Cooper announced the release of North Carolina’s first Community Violence Prevention Strategic Plan, a milestone in the effort to reduce violence, harm from violence and firearm misuse across the state. The three-year plan was developed and released by the North Carolina Office of Violence Prevention.

• In January 2024, Governor Cooper issued Executive Order No. 303 directing whole-of-government coordination to improve reentry for formerly incarcerated people in the most significant effort targeted at strengthening reentry in state history. The Order aims to improve rehabilitation and reentry services for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in North Carolina through specific directives developed in partnership with each cabinet agency, the Office of State Human Resources and the Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission. This Executive Order builds on the existing mission of the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction (DAC) while unifying state agencies under the shared goal of improving reentry services. In December 2024, Governor Cooper announced the release of the first Reentry 2030 Progress Report.

• This report, which was directed by Executive Order 303, provides a scorecard of progress made towards objectives, strategies, and metrics established by the Joint Reentry Council in its Reentry 2030 Strategic Plan, which was released in August. Additionally, the Report contains updated state reentry accomplishments, along with recommendations to the General Assembly for legislative actions to improve reentry in North Carolina this upcoming 2025 Session.

• In 2018, Governor Cooper directed the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) to undertake a comprehensive inventory of the quality of information North Carolina shares with the federal background check system known as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). In 2019, Cooper announced that as a result of that work, 284,289 individual instances of criminal convictions that had previously been unreported in the NICS database were added.
• In 2019, Governor Cooper signed an executive directive requiring state agencies to take increased action on closing crime reporting gaps between state and federal agencies and expanding firearm safety education.
• In 2023, Governor Roy Cooper announced the NC S.A.F.E. (Secure All Firearms Effectively) initiative to urge North Carolinians to take action to safely store their firearms and save lives. This call to action highlights firearm safety in response to mounting numbers of deaths of children and youth from firearm injury, along with a surge in firearm thefts across the state. The NC S.A.F.E. (Secure All Firearms Effectively) initiative provides resources on best practices for firearm storage and safety.

In June 2020, Governor Cooper launched the Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice (TREC). TREC focuses on addressing existing policies and procedures that disproportionately affect communities of color and developing solutions to ensure racial equity in North Carolina’s criminal justice system.