CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte family is calling for bail reform as the Queen City continues to experience gun violence.
Sevhn Robinson lost her 25-year-old son Kyyri Doggette in 2017 to a shooting on Independence Boulevard.
Robinson was told by police her son was the 55th homicide that year.
Robinson who organizes the Mega Mommy March against gun violence every year is calling for changes to bail.
"The laws need to be changed," Robinson said. "Because if not there will be women like myself that will have a life sentence and they haven't even committed a crime."
In North, Carolina magistrates get the first chance to set a defendant's bond. Each district court in the state has different guidelines for how much a bond should be depending on the charge.
"I'm not for locking folks up but if you're gonna squeeze that trigger, you need to go to jail," Charles Robinson, Charlotte Outreach Minister and Sevhn Robinson's husband said.
The Robinsons aren’t alone in this fight.
Mecklenburg County’s District Attorney Spencer Merriweather and CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings have publicly criticized the state's laws on bail for violent criminals.
Last year Chief Johnny Jennings talked to WCNC about his push to keep violent criminals from bonding out of jail and going back on the streets.
"I don't blame the magistrates individually. I blame the system," he said.
County judges also have a say in bail.
"The jail downtown is a revolving door. The bonds are too low," Charles Robinson said.
The efforts to change bail laws will face scrutiny due to current reports that show major disparities in bail.
According to the North Carolina Commission on Racial & Ethnic Disparities Black and Latino people are more likely than whites to be denied bail, to have higher money bond set, to be detained because they cannot pay their bond
The Robinsons say higher bonds for violent offenders protect these same communities.
“Our communities are under siege right now," Charles Robinson said. "And if we keep on, you know, we won't have a future because all of us either gonna be in jail, or in the graveyard. We can't have that.”
The 2023 Mega Mommy March is taking place on January 7. It starts at Marshall Park in Uptown Charlotte at 10:30 a.m.